


Magic, Masks, and Mayhem

by Mad_Stressed



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Alternate Universe - Witchcraft, Demons, Familiars, I'll add tags as I think of them later, Multi, My First Work in This Fandom, Slow Burn, Slow To Update, Witches, this is my first work ever actually
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2020-01-10
Packaged: 2020-12-17 05:40:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 33,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21049217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mad_Stressed/pseuds/Mad_Stressed
Summary: Marinette is a young witch whose life is changed forever when a strange, dark power threatens her city, forcing her to take up the mantle of Ladybug. Now, Marinette must somehow save the city from an unknown threat while discovering more than she bargained for about the nature of magic.





	1. Origins Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this is pretty much my first work ever, so I'm very new with a lot of this, so any advice or feedback is appreciated. I started this AU cuz I'm always a sucker for magic in a modern setting, and I wanted to practice writing narratives in order to become a better DM for my dungeons and dragons group (yeah, I know I'm a nerd).
> 
> I'll try to my hardest to develop weekly update schedule but I'm a college student with a full-time job, so ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

_Thwump_

Mari was awoken by something red and furry landing on her face.

"Tikkiiiiii", the young witch groaned, muffled by the familiar that was currently sitting on her face, “Why do you always have to wake me up like this?”

‘’We’ve discussed this before, Marinette, it's the only way you respond in the morning”

Mari sat up, unceremoniously dumping Tikki off her face and glared at her familiar, but the cherry red creature was already running for the door, calling behind her, “Your mother says you’ll be late to school if you wait any longer.”

Muttering about traitorous familiars and late night spellwork Marinette somehow managed to drag herself out of bed and start her morning routine. Despite the somewhat late start, she managed be ready with enough time to grab a chocolate croissant from the bakery before she rushed off to school

The walk to school wasn’t a long one, but it was far enough that Marinette and Tikki could share their breakfast. Most familiars Tikki’s size preferred to walk beside their chosens, but Tikki was rather partial to riding on Marinette's shoulder, which usually worked out well for the pair, until Marinette's clumsiness inevitably reared its head.

The young witch had almost made it up the steps to where Alya was waiting when her foot caught on nothing, and the poor girl went down hard. Tikki thinking quickly, leapt clear of the girl and took to the air before Marinette had even hit the ground. Marinette, who was used to such tumbles by now, recovered quickly, popping to her feet before Alya could even react.

“Girl, I swear one day you’ll be the death of me”, the redhead sighed as she helped her friend collect the papers she’d been carrying.

Tikki hovered for a moment before settling down beside Alya’s familiar, Trixx.

“I know, I know”, Marinette sighed, “I'm working on an “anti-tripping” spell, but I just can't get the incantation right”

“Have you tried Latin?”

Marinette glared at her friend, “Of course I tried Latin. Do you really think id forget my spellworking basics?” 

Alya grinned, “Hey”, she said, placing her hands up in mock surrender, “I'm just saying, sometimes you get so caught up in the advanced techniques that you forget your basics.”

Marinette's retort was drowned out by the warning bell, and the two witches hurried up the last of the steps and off to class.

Francois Dupont was technically a magnet school for “magically gifted” teenagers, but most of the students preferred the term, “magically inclined”, since everyone is gifted with the ability to do magic, some are just more naturally attuned to it than others.

Like most classes at the school, Marinette's class had been together since the beginning, with a few new faces that joined few the years. The school technically started enrollment for students at the age of 11, but most didn’t receive an invitation until they were at least 12, some wouldn’t receive invitations until they were much older (and some simply bought their way in). How students were selected was unclear, the invitation simply appeared on their doorstep.

Marinette's class was what the principal called “an exceptional collection” which basically meant that they raised more hell than any other class. All of them were magically inclined, but not in always in a traditional sense. Sure, there were a lot of traditional magic users, like Marinette and Alya, but there were those like Nathanael, Ivan, and Mylene that were so heavily entrenched in one specific magical skill that they were almost incapable of any other type of magic, students like these were among the minority in their class who didn’t have a familiar.

At the beginning, no one in the class had a familiar. It wasn’t until the second year at Francois Dupont that Marinette became the first to have a familiar appear.  
Most familiars appear to their chosens as their magic begins to grow, usually around the beginning of puberty. When Marinette was 13 years old, Tikki had appeared in a bright flash of pink light and caused quite a bit of chaos in the middle of their class’s “silent reading” time.

Most of her peers had been rather excited about Marinette’s new familiar, but Tikki’s unusual appearance did make Marinette the target of bullying, usually at the hands of Chloe. 

Tikki was slightly larger than a housecat, she had sleek, cherry red fur. Her eyes were a strange depthless blue that reflected the light as if they were opals. Her face was reminiscent of a hare, though her ears were not quite so long. Her body was more catlike and her fangs and claws made her look far more vicious than she was. Large black spots adorned her forehead, cheeks, back, and chest.  
The strangest thing about Marinette's familiar was probably the wings and tails. Tikki had beautiful insect like wings that glistened like her eyes, and three long tails with fur flattened into feather-like shapes. 

Chloe had had a field day when Tikki first appeared, calling her a “reject faerie” and claiming that Tikki didn’t turn out right because Marinette was a half-baked witch.  
Tikki had later explained that some familiars displayed their fae heritage more clearly than others, and while this did make Marinette feel better, it did not stop the stares she gets from strangers on the street.

The day after Tikki had appeared, their class had two new students, one was Alya, who quickly became Marinette's best friend, the other was Adrien Agreste.

Marinette's initial meeting with the blonde model had not gone smoothly. Shortly after introducing herself to the boy, he found her familiar digging through his locker. That combined with the gum incident that happened about 20 minutes later, marked a rather rocky start for the two. It had taken weeks to get the two to reconcile their differences and talk it out (mostly thanks to the machinations of Nino and Alya). Three years later, and the two were fast friends.

By the time the two girls made to the classroom, most of the students had already arrived. Nino and Adrien were chatting idly in their usually seats. Marinette gave a warm greeting to the both of them as she took her seat behind Adrien. Alya greeted Nino with a quick cheek kiss before taking her seat beside Marinette, just as the final bell sounded. 

Most of the day had been rather uneventful, the only interesting thing to happen was when Xuppu, Kim’s familiar, had stolen a note from Ivan in the locker room. The monkey and his chosen gave Ivan quite the runaround, until the larger boy promptly picked up the wizard and threw him across the room in an unusual show of anger. Ivan’s ability to transmute his himself into a rock golem was one that made him somewhat intimidating, despite the fact that the kid was incredibly timid and gentle most of the time. 

By the end of the day, Marinette was bored to tears. Alya grabbed her, along with Nino and Adrien as soon as the final bell rang and was dragging them out of the door. 

“We haven’t done anything as a group in weeks, we are going to get ice cream and then to my house for movies and junk food,” Alya proclaimed, “And don’t even think about trying to get out of it. I've already talked to Mr. Agreste’s assistant and I know you're all free today.”

In the three years she’d known Alya, Marinette had learned that it was futile to fight her best friend on matters such as these, the boys seemed understand this as well, as neither of them offered up any type of protests.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

By the time they had reached the steps of the school, Adrien was practically vibrating with excitement. It wasn’t often that he had a free afternoon, and being allowed to spend time with his friends was a special treat.

He watched his friends skip down the steps ahead of him, their familiars hot on their heels. Adrien felt a pang of loneliness as he watched Nino pick up Wayzz. As if sensing his emotions, Tikki fluttered from her perch on Marinette's shoulder and plopped herself into his arms, buzzing happily. He smiled, and laughed as he heard Marinette's sigh in exasperation. 

Usually touching another’s familiar was taboo, but so long as both the familiar and their chosen consented, it was acceptable. Of the three, Tikki was his favorite. She was always sweet to him, much like her witch.  
Trixx, who took the form of a brown eyed fox, was the largest of the three, and was far too mischievous for Adrien to handle most days. He always had to watch his food whenever the fox was around, as she had a habit of stealing any food she could fit in her mouth.

Wayzz, on the other hand, was far more laid back and he and Adrien got along well. Unlike Trixx, Wayzz didn’t look like any particular animal, but rather looked like a mix between a baby bear and a snapping turtle, with leathery skin, and a plated shell that covered his back. His face seemed very turtlelike, with intelligent yellow eyes and a single, feather-like antennae that emerged from the center of his forehead. 

As Adrien fell into step beside Marinette, Tikki had made her way onto his shoulder. He tried to pass Tikki back to her witch, but Marinette laughed and waved him off, “Shes plenty happy with you. Besides, she can get a much better view of the city from your shoulder than mine.”

“Hey”, Adrien responded, scratching Tikki behind her ears, “Don’t sell yourself _short_, I'm sure she enjoys your shoulders just fine”

He got three exasperated groans in response.

It wasn’t long after that they found themselves at the ice cream stand on the riverfront. Alya and Nino opted to share their desert, while Adrien and Marinette were left to fend for themselves. The happy couple found a little secluded bench to share, leaving their friends leaning against the railing overlooking the Seine. 

“I'm glad I don’t have to third wheel alone this time”, Marinette said as she shot a look towards their friends.

Adrien chuckled, “Yeah, it's definitely easier being a fourth wheel than of a third.” 

“Tell me about it”, scoffed Marinette as she offered her ice cream to Tikki, who had made her way onto the railing between them. “Usually it's just Tikki and I“, Tikki turned to Adrien and reached to sample his ice cream, “- but I think she prefers your company to mine.”

Tikki let out a strange trill and puffed out her chest, causing Marinette to laugh, presumably at something Tikki had said through their bond. 

Before he could stop himself, Adrien asked, “What does Tikki sound like? When she talks to you, I mean”.

Marinette looked at him, surprised.

“You don’t have to answer that”, Adrien quickly amended, “that was rude, I'm sorry.”

“No, no it's fine”, Marinette assured him, patting his arm. “I suppose she sounds... sweet? I'm not sure how to describe her voice. I hear it, but I don’t actually hear it, you know?”

Adrien did know, but he paused before he said as much, allowing Marinette to continue her thoughts.

“I’ve spoken to other familiars, and their voices always sound different...”

“Wait, what?”, Adrien interrupted, “You’ve spoken to other familiars?”

“Well, yeah”, Marinette responded, as if it were obvious, “It's not a super common occurrence, but familiars can speak to humans other than their chosen”.

Adrien was dumbstruck, he’d never heard of such a thing. Surely someone would have told him. Right? Oh, when he got home he was going to have a very stern discussion with—

Adrien was so busy having his own internal battle that he didn’t notice Tikki and Marinette sharing a look. After about a second, both witch and familiar nodded before Tikki once again faced the young man.

_“Adrien you never had anyone to teach you the basics of the rules of familiars, it's okay to not know everything”_, a new voice spoke in his head. 

Adrien flinched, the voice was strange and sweet and new. He looked over to the familiar next to him, she gave him the fae equivalent of a smile._ “It's nice to finally speak to you”_, she said.

“Likewise”, Adrien replied, his tongue feeling heavy in his mouth. He tried to think of what to say next, but his train of thought was cut off by a giggle. His eyes cut to Marinette, he’d almost forgotten she was here.

She grinned at him, “You know, for your first conversation, I think it's going pretty well.”

Her laugh seemed to wake Adrien back up, he shook off his stupor. “Well, I’ll have to agree with you on one thing”, he gestured to Tikki, “She definitely sounds sweet”.

_“Why, thank you Adrien”_, Tikki’s voice replied in his head.__

_ __ _

Adrien must have looked unsettled, because as soon as Tikki had spoken, Marinette giggled and laid a hand on her familiar’s head, “I think that’s enough for now Tikki, we don’t want to overwhelm him”.

_ __ _

“Hey now, I think I handled it fairly well”, Adrien defended.

_ __ _

Marinette shot him another smile, “Of course you did, but you still looked a little spooked.”

_ __ _

Adrien was about to argue that he did not, in fact, look “spooked”. When a violent shiver ran up his spine. He froze and looked around, alert.

_ __ _

Marinette and Tikki, as well as a few other pedestrians and familiars seemed to have had the same response. Before Adrien could really put any thought into what that feeling was, Marinette was grabbing his hand and pulling him away from the unsettled crowd, which had begun moving away from the river.

_ __ _

“We need to find Alya and Nino”, she spoke lowly.

_ __ _

Adrien, meanwhile was still confused, “Wait, what was that? Why do we need to find them? What's happening?”

_ __ _

Marinette offered no answers as she continued to pull him towards where they had last seen their friends, but she paused once they were farther away from the crowds. Turning to face him she looked between him and Tikki a few times before her eyes settled on him.

_ __ _

There was a tenseness in her shoulders as she spoke, “It means trouble, and we need to get out of here. _Now_.” 

_ __ _

Adrien’s response was cut off by the sound of screams in the distance.

_ __ _


	2. Origins Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> what could possibly be causing all that chaos? who is going to stop it? no one knows!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Im adding the second chapter so soon just because the first doesn't even get to the whole "becoming ladybug" bit. still not a lot of action yet, that comes in the next chapters.

“Maybe we should split up to look for them”, Adrien suggested as he craned his neck, looking for his best friend.

Marinette’s grip on his hand tightened. “No”, she said, pulling out her phone to call Alya, “We stick together”.

Adrien couldn’t say he disagreed with her, the sounds of the screams in the distance seemed to be getting closer, he subconsciously tightened his grip on Marinette's hand.

Tikki had taken up a perch upon Adrien's head, allowing her a better view over the top of the crowd, which was beginning to become ever so slightly panicked. 

Adrien's focus was broken by a sigh of relief from the witch beside him. “Alya, thank goodness, is Nino with you? Good. Where are you, we are coming to get you.” Marinette paused as Alya described their situation.

_“WHAT!? _Why would you run towards the screaming!? Alya you're going to get hurt! Magic doesn’t feel like that unless there is some _seriously_ bad mojo in the area.” 

At this point Tikki had relocated to Adriens shoulder. Listening intently. The distant screams began to die down.

“Look”, Marinette sighed, “just promise me that you'll both meet us at the bakery, we should be safe there. Promise me Alya!” Marinette paused as Alya agreed. “Okay good, we’ll meet you as soon as we can. Be safe”. 

With that, the raven-haired girl hung up the phone, and looked at Adrien. “We’re meeting them at the bakery”, she said, as she began to pull him in the direction of her home. 

They had made it about halfway to the Dupain-Cheng bakery, Marinette not letting go of his hand all the while, when a great _BOOM_ shook the earth and a thunderous roar nearly knocked Adrien off his feet. All around them the citizens of Paris began to well and truly panic. 

The people in the street began to stampede, knocking Marinette's tiny frame out of his reach and into the side of a building. Before Adrien could even react, he and Tikki were swept away by the mob, Adrien had no choice but to change course and run with the crowd as another roar whipped them into a frenzy.

He looked to Tikki, who was clinging to his shoulder for dear life, “Go find Marinette, keep her safe.”

Tikki seemed hesitant to leave.

“I’ll be fine”, he assured the familiar, “She’s alone back there, she may be hurt”.

His words seemed to have the desired effect, as Tikki nodded before taking flight, headed back in the direction of where Marinette had fallen. 

Not long after Tikki had left, Adrien saw an opening. A gap in the crowd appeared for long enough that he was able to slip out of the mob and stumble into a narrow alleyway, landing on his hands and knees.

Adrien got up, wiping his hands on his jeans as he took stock of his surroundings. His gaze locked with a pair of familiar green eyes above him on the fire escape, relief flooded through him.

“Hey, Kid”, the mischievous voice spoke in his head, “Thought you might need a little help”.

~~~~~~~~~

Marinette sat, leaning against the building as she regained her bearings. The impact had knocked the breath out of her. She was lucky she’d been pushed into a wall, away from the crowd, rather than tramped under foot.

Tikki landed beside her, placing a paw on Marinette's knee in concern. Marinette smiled wearily at her familiar, “I'm fine Tikki, just had the breath knocked out of me. I should be okay to stand in a second.”

Tikki nodded, “Good. Why don’t we—”  
She was cut off by another earth-shattering roar. This one even closer than the last. Marinette looked up just in time to see a hulking figure round the corner a few blocks away, her breath caught in her throat.

The creature was made up entirely of dark grey stone. It was massive, it's hulking shoulders broader than most cars. And easily as tall as the bus that it was currently pushing out of its way as it wandered in Marinette's direction. 

“Is... Is that Ivan!?”

It certainly looked like Ivan. Or at the very least it looked like what Ivan was able to transform himself into. But there was one problem with that theory, Ivan had never managed a full-body transformation, at least not to Marinette's knowledge, and he certainly wasn’t the type to go about causing chaos.

“Tikki this can't be right, that can't be Ivan. Right!?” Marinette looked at her familiar in desperation, and, for the first time, saw fear in the creature’s eyes as Tikki shook her head.

“There was supposed to be more time”, the familiar whispered, “There's no way it's happening this soon. We were supposed to have more time” 

“Tikki, what—” Marinette stopped, her attention captured by the armored cars and formation of officers making its way down the street.

Ivan seemed to notice them too. He paused his slow progress to roar at the approaching formation. 

Marinette watched as the approaching cars stopped and the armed men began to shift, bringing their weapons into view. Before Marinette even had the chance to shout “NO!!” sound of gunfire ripped through the air. 

Marinette dove into a window alcove as the bullets flew. Moments after the chaos started, it ended, leaving behind a deafening silence. The young witch looked up, afraid to know her classmate’s fate, only to see Ivan begin to grow in size, his stone muscles bulked and his height increased as he roared once more, and continued to pick his way towards the now retreating armored vehicles.

The witch turned to her familiar, “Tikki! What the hell is this!? And don’t say you don’t know, because it seems like you know at least something.”

Tikki flinched at the accusations in her chosen’s voice, “Look, I don’t know much. But I can say two things for certain. The first is that that is definitely Ivan. The second is that this is demon possession.” The knot in Marinette's stomach tightened. “This type of possession is the result of an akuma, which is a type of demon that usually binds itself to an object that the person is in contact with, rather than the person’s soul.”

Marinette pondered the information for a second. “So, if we take away the object...”

“...then the demon can no longer inhabit its host”, Tikki supplied for her. 

“Who else knows this?”

Tikki shrugged, “The magic is very old. I doubt many people even know what an akuma is anymore, much less how to stop one.”

“Then we need to stop it”, Marinette announced, as she made her way to follow the stone titan, “before Ivan gets hurt or hurts someone else.”

“Wait, wait! Marinette you can't just fight a demon like this!” Tikki flew in front of her chosen, stopping her in her tracks. “Don’t you remember anything from your lessons? Demons hold grudges! If you banish this one it will try to get its revenge! Demons are patient and evil, you cannot let it know who you are!”

“Oh, yeah, you're right Tikki”, Marinette said, as she returned to her hiding spot, “I need to disguise myself. Can you help me with that?”

Tikki rolled her eyes, “Yes I can help you with that, but once you have a disguise what are you going to do? Fight Ivan with your fists? You need a weapon! Oh, my goodness we are so under prepared! I had hoped for a few more years at—”

“Tikki!” Marinette began to dig through her purse, “It'll be fine, I always do my best work when I improvise anyway”, she pulled a yo-yo out of one of the hidden pockets, why did she have this? She held the toy out to Tikki, “Will this do?”  
“I suppose so”, Tikki seemed to be getting a hold on her anxiety, “I’ll need you to lend me some of your magic, so I can properly guide the spell.”

Marinette obliged she took a deep breath, settling her nerves as she pulled the threads of spirit from the source within her and began to funnel it towards Tikki. Her familiar spoke three words that were so foreign to her ears that Marinette wasn’t sure she’d heard them at all. 

For a split second the world was white and when her vision cleared Marinette saw before her a red and black spotted yo-yo, it was smoother in shape, and the string was sturdier than it had been before. She moved to pick up the weapon, and that was when she noticed the gloves. 

Marinette looked down to realize she was now wearing some type of light, padded armor. Her whole body was snuggly wrapped in a spandex-like material, with enforced areas of armor that covered her more vulnerable spots. The whole ensemble was the same red as Tikki’s fur, with black spots scattered about. Large swaths of black accents interrupted the ladybug like pattern. A spotted red hood covered her hair, and a domino mask concealed her features. 

Marinette turned in surprise to Tikki, who looked rather weary. “How did you do this?”

Tikki yawned, “I imbued your earrings with a little bit of our power. You should be able to call up the suit and yo-yo at will.”

Marinette frowned, “Are you good to keep up? Should I carry you?”

Tikki yawned once more, “You go on ahead of me, try to track Ivan and figure out where the akuma is, I’ll be fine to follow you once I eat the granola bar that you keep stashed in your purse.” 

With that Tikki began to dig through Marinette's purse, “you'd better hurry”, she said, “you don’t want to lose Ivan’s trail.”

Marinette nodded, swallowing her anxiety as she dashed out of the alley, towards the sound of the lumbering golem.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> once again any feedback is appreciated!
> 
> thanks for reading!


	3. Origins Part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marinette finds herself face to face with a stone titan. Will she be able to face him alone?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok so I'll try to update twice a week (or every 3/4 days or so) but updates will probably become less frequent when we near finals week.
> 
> also there are 4 parts to the "origins" bit. (sorry for stretching it so long but I like to write long chapters)

Marinette hadn’t made it half a block before she realized that she was moving to slow. She considered her surroundings for a moment, before looking at her yo-yo. Giving it an experimental throw, Marinette was surprised at how it responded to her, it was as if the weapon knew what she wanted it to do.

“Okay, here goes nothing”, she muttered under her breath before throwing the yo-yo as hard as she could towards a streetlight far above her head. The yo-yo flew effortlessly towards her target, wrapping securely around it before pulling Marinette along with it.

The young witch shot passed the lamp post, high above the surrounding rooves. The yo-yo released the lamppost and returned to her hand, leaving her free falling. In her panic, Marinette somehow managed to spot a distant chimney. Once again, she threw her yo-yo, and once again, it did exactly as she wanted. Wrapping around the chimney and enabling her to swing above the streets, and releasing at just the right time to allow her time to pick her next target. 

By the time she finished her fifth swing, landing on a particularly tall roof, Marinette was shouting for joy, only to be brought back to reality by a jaw-rattling explosion. Pausing to take a deep breath, Marinette steeled her nerves and raced towards the chaos.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

Turns out following a giant rock monster through a densely populated city was not nearly as hard as Marinette had originally thought. It took her all of five minutes, which she used to further familiarize herself with her yo-yo. 

By the time she caught up with Ivan, he was nearing the Eiffel Tower, which was good, since it forced him out in the open, making him easy to find. 

What was not good, however, was the fact that the plaza surrounding the Eiffel tower was still significantly full of people. The frenzied crowd gave Ivan no shortage of targets and prevented the police force from engaging him in any meaningful way, the only real positive, was that Ivan still moved fairly slowly, and seemed unable to chase down any of the panicked tourists.

As Marinette neared her target she noticed that Ivan had cornered a tour group beneath the tower, raising his fist as if to strike the whole huddled group at once.

Acting on instinct the raven-haired hero lassoed the giant’s fist. Landing with her feet on his shoulders, Marinette heaved back on the line, pulling his fist away from the civilians.

The group gaped at her in awe, seemingly stunned by her sudden appearance.

_“Go!_ Get out of here!”, Marinette managed to grit out as she struggled against the giant. Her orders seemed to awaken them from their stupor, and the whole group scurried away from the giant.

It was at this point that Ivan seemed to have realized that it was indeed the spotted hero that had him lassoed. Reaching up with his unbound hand, he grabbed Marinette by the ankle and threw her into the far leg of the tower. Her body leaving a dent in the iron.

“Ow”, Marinette wheezed as she got to her feet. The impact had hurt, but it hadn’t done nearly the damage she had expected, nothing was broken, but she certainly had to take a second to find her breath. 

Ivan lumbered towards her, seemingly intent on finishing her off. She waited for him to get closer, taking her time to search for any possible possessed object. The only problem seemed to be that he didn’t have _anything_ on him. Not even clothes. 

Marinette was about to fall into despair when she noticed his fist, the one she had lassoed not long ago. He was obviously holding something in that hand, though she couldn’t see what it was. The scarlet-clad witch figured that whatever was in that fist definitely had to be where the akuma was. Now that she knew where the object was, she just had to go about getting. Easier said than done. 

She’d had worse plans, and they always seemed to work out well enough. 

Once Ivan was 10 yards away, she took off at a dead sprint, right towards the giant. Ivan took up a fighting stance, as if he expected her to try to knock him over. Swinging her yo-yo, Marinette lassoed his free hand, not pausing for the golem to react, she slid between his legs and vaulted onto his back. Looping the rope around his stony neck, she pulled as hard as she could. 

Her plan worked. The giant’s hand was pulled in towards his body, leaving only his occupied fist free. She hoped she wasn’t hurting him, hopefully his stone skin prevented her from choking him. Her plan was to cause him to drop the akuma in favor of grabbing her, however, that didn’t quite work out. Instead of grabbing for the spotted witch, he simply tried to punch her.

His first blow missed, but as Marinette dodged, she lost her balance, and the second blow caught her hip, sending he tumbling off the back of the titan, the yo-yo responded to the sudden lack of tension by returning to her hand.

Faster than she could react, Ivan used his newly freed hand to grab her ankle once again. Only this time instead of throwing her away from him, he lifted Marinette over his head and slammed her to the ground.

A loud _CRACK_ reverberated through Marinette's body as the concrete beneath her gave way. Once again, her armor protected her from the worst of the impact, but she still found herself unable to breathe, her chest felt as if she were being stabbed with red hot knives.

Before she could get her bearings, she was lifted off the ground once again. Marinette barely had time to brace herself before she impacted the ground a second time. A broken wheeze escaped her lips.

_This is it. This is how I die._ She thought as she was lifted off the ground for a third time, her head ringing from the impacts. _What a stupid way to die. Alya is going to be pissed, she’ll probably hold a séance just to tell me what an idiot I am._

She braced herself for the third impact, but instead of the sound of flesh on concrete, she heard the sound of metal clashing against stone. The giant grunted in surprise, and suddenly Marinette was weightless as Ivan released her leg. 

Before Marinette could hit the ground, she felt arms cradling her, she opened her eyes to see nothing but black and green, Marinette tried to turn her head, but pain arced through her neck, preventing her from looking about. She let out a pitiful groan.

“Try not to move too much”, a friendly voice said from above, “I'm gonna try and get us somewhere safe, hold on.”

Suddenly Marinette felt as if she were ascending rapidly, though the ascent only lasted a few seconds. Gently she was laid down on the ground, it was warm, like metal that had been heated by the sun. Hands began to move over her, miniscule pulses of magic pricked at her skin. Marinette tried to move, but the shock of movement caused pain to shoot through her body, she groaned once more.

“_Shit_, shit, shit. I'm sorry. I'm not good at healing magics. I’m trying my best”, the voice sounded like it was on the edge of panic. 

“Healing?”, Marinette mumbled, “That’s one of the things I'm actually good at, give me a second”, she said as she began to focus her magic. It took quite a bit longer than usual to weave together the spell, but the moment she mumbled the incantation her pain eased and she felt a cooling sensation flow through her body. Her head cleared and her bones began to slowly knit themselves back together.

“Where are we?”, she managed to groan as the healing magic continued its work.

“One of the upper observation decks”, the voice replied, “I figured boulder brain wouldn’t be able to find his way up here to easily.”

_Can't argue with that logic,_ the young witch thought as her mind continued to clear.

Once Marinette could sit up without the world spinning, she looked at the person who was kneeling beside her. He grinned in relief as she took him in. He appeared to be about her age, and his getup was similar to her own: an armored spandex-like suit, complete with a hood and domino mask, except his suit had a completely different color scheme. It was awash with blacks and dark grays, with small accents of bright green, that matched his unnervingly catlike eyes. His hood was topped with what looked to be two cat ears, and his belt appeared to function as a tail that flicked about behind him.

“Well since you don’t seem all that eager to break the ice, I’ll start. Hello”, he said holding out his hand, “My name is A_mfff._"

Marinette cut him off with a hand over his mouth. “No names”, she said firmly, “That _thing_ down there will hunt you til the end of time if it learns your name. Got it?” 

The boy nodded.

“Good”, Marinette said, removing her hand from his mouth.

“So, if I'm not allowed to learn your name, then what am I supposed to call you?” the boy asked, cocking his head to the side like an inquisitive kitten.

Marinette shrugged, “I didn’t really put much thought into a codename. What do you want me to call you?”

The boy thought about it for a second. He looked down at his costume before he spoke, “Well, I kinda got a cat theme going on, so... how about... Chat Noir? Yeah, I like that. Chat Noir.”

Marinette chuckled before looking at her own costume. 

“I suppose I could always call you Spot”, Chat Noir supplied helpfully.

“Only if I get to call you Minou”, Marinette retorted, causing Chat to chuckle.

A thunderous roar shook the tower. Pulling the duo back to reality. Marinette looked over the edge of the deck to see a frustrated stone titan slowly climbing the tower.

“Damn, Rocky looks pretty pissed”, Chat whistled as he watched the giant’s progress. He stood and turned to her, offering his hand, “How much longer do you need to heal, Spot?”

Marinette sighed as she took his hand and stood, testing her limbs. She felt fine, though she would probably be sore in the morning. “I'm good to fight, but don’t call me Spot, I'm not a damn dog.”

Chat looked at her expectantly, “Then what am I supposed to call you?”

Marinette groaned in exasperation as she once again looked down at the titan, who had made little progress on his climb. “We don’t have time for this”, she said, scrubbing her face with her hands. 

She pulled away, looking at her spotted gloves.The young witch let out a huff. “Fuck it. You know what?” she said looking at Chat, “You can call me Ladybug.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again any comments, suggestions, or questions would be greatly appreciated! 
> 
> Just a heads up chapter 4 is looking like it will be the longest one yet. (3000+ words) I was thinking of splitting it into two chapters, but I didn't want to stretch out the "origins" whatnot any longer, y'all deserve some type of plot.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	4. Origins Part 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last part of the origins part of the story. Hope you enjoy!

The two heroes stared down at stone creature slowly climbing towards them.

“So, _Ladybug,_ what's the plan?”, Chat inquired, shifting on his toes.

“You see his left hand? The one that never opens?” Chat nodded. “Well the thing that’s possessing him is probably tethered to whatever is in that hand”, Ladybug explained. “If we can get that object and destroy it, then we can stop him.”

Chat nodded once again, “Yeah, I understand vaguely how akumas work, my familiar gave me the crash course just before I got here. One problem though. How do we get him to open his hand?”

“That’s the million-dollar question isn’t it”, Ladybug sighed. She looked around trying to find some inspiration. They had nothing to work with up here on the empty observation deck. Her magic swirled inside her, as if sensing her frustration.

Ladybug looked to her companion, “I have a magic yo-yo. What do you got?”

Chat unclipped a thin metal cylinder, about a foot long, from his belt. He pushed the pawprint button in the center and the cylinder lengthened into a full sized bowstaff. “It expands much more”, Chat said, giving the staff a twirl, “It may expand infinitely, I'm not sure. It's how I got us up here.”

“Alright, a magic yo-yo and an infinite stick”, Ladybug muttered, pulling her hood back and taking a breath, “Got any hidden talents? You obviously have magic”, she said, gesturing to his suit, “What can you do with it?”

The black-clad boy laughed bitterly, “I destroy everything I touch. Both literally and figuratively.”

The sadness in his voice gave her pause, but Ladybug shook it off, she didn’t know this kid, and they didn’t have time for a heart to heart right now.

Chat waited patiently as the spotted heroine paced about the deck, trying to come up with some semblance of a plan. Once again, Marinette felt her magic stir, as if offering a solution. 

“Okay!”, She exclaimed, startling Chat as she abruptly stopped pacing, “I have an idea. Not sure if it’ll work or not, but I have an idea.”

“Great! So, what's the plan?”, Chat said, recovering from his surprise at her outburst.

“I don’t know yet”, Ladybug proclaimed proudly, “but that’s all part of the plan, just give me a second.”

Chat looked on in confusion as Ladybug pulled her hood back into place and began to gather her magic. Marinette had always been good at the whole “making things” part of magic, the creative processes (conjuration, creation, spell making, healing, blessing) came easy to her. And over the few years she’d learned a thing or two about these arts.

One thing she’d learned was that the more specific you make your conjuration, the more energy it took. The other thing shed learned was that her magic tended to do what it felt was best, even if it wasn’t what Marinette wanted.

Keeping these things in mind Marinette called forth her magic with a simple request in mind: _Give me something I can use._

Within a few seconds there was a quick flash of white light and a weight fell into her hands. 

“A backpack?”, Ladybug held the object up in confusion. What was she supposed to do with this? It looked like a heavy-duty hiking backpack, the only unusual thing being the fact that it was totally red and covered in black spots.

Chat snickered as he leaned in for a closer look, “Well, at least it matches your outfit”, he batted at the straps with his clawed gloves, “but that’s not a backpack, it's a parachute. No backpack has that many straps.”

“Oh...”, Ladybug paused as she took in this new information, “Of course! I can work with this!” 

She ran over to the edge of the deck to check Ivan’s progress. He was about halfway up. Perfect. 

She turned to Chat, “When you said you destroyed things you touched, were you being serious?”

“Well”, Chat hesitated, “Yeah. I can literally make things disintegrate.”

“Perfect. Can you do it on command?”

“Most of the time”, Chat said, eying her wearily, “but if you're planning on having me use it on Rocky, then you should know that I refuse to use it on anything living.”

“Don’t worry”, Ladybug assured Chat, “if everything goes as planned he won’t get hurt”, the last thing Marinette wanted to do was harm her classmate.

“Okay”, Chat sighed, obviously relieved, “So, what's the plan?”

Ladybugs eyes gleamed wickedly as she began to pull the parachute out of the bag. “Depends”, she grinned mischievously, “How good are you at climbing?” 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As Ivan neared the observation deck, Ladybug prayed that Chat was getting everything into position.

The stone giant pulled himself up and over the edge with very little grace. He roared as he got to his feet.

“Do you ever actually say anything?”, Ladybug goaded, swinging her yo-yo lazily, hoping to stall for just a little bit longer, “Can't we just talk out our issues? Do we really need to fight?”

Ivan roared and charged her.

“Guess not”, Ladybug muttered as she ran to meet him.

Right before the two collided, Ladybug slid beneath his legs. Swinging her yo-yo, she once again ensnared his fist. Before the golem could pull her off her feet she leapt above him, vaulting off his face to land on the beam above him.

_“NOW CHAT!”_, she shouted, hoping he could hear her over the wind.

For a terrifying second, nothing happened. Ivan yanked at the line, nearly pulling her from her perch. But after a couple of seconds, the platform beneath Ivan’s feet began to rust and crack, Ladybug readied herself, tightening her grip on the yo-yo.

The floor gave way with a metallic groan and Ivan began to plummet downwards, Ladybug used the yo-yo to slow his descent, but not stop it entirely. She felt the line lose tension as Ivan hit the target.

Ladybug looked down to see that Chat Noir had executed her plan perfectly. Ivan had hit the parachute that Chat had situated in such a way that that it had snapped around the stone giant upon impact, entangling him so well that only his occupied fist was free.

Before Ivan had a chance to react, Ladybug released him from the yo-yo’s hold and used the weapon to swing down to join Chat, who had begun to harass the titan by poking him in the face with his staff.

Chat was having the time of his life, “Come on, rock face”, he laughed as he jabbed Ivan in the face, “you can do better than that, oop-“, he dodged the giant’s fist, poking him once again, “you'll have to be quicker than that, I have the reflexes of a cat, after all”, another jab. 

“Y’know, you could always try to _grab_ the staff”, Chat said as he wound up to swing at the stony head. 

Taking Chat’s advice to heart, Ivan opened his fist and grabbed the staff, intent on turning it on its owner with a vengeance, but not before Ladybug could snatch up the piece of paper that fluttered from his hand.

Ladybug could feel the dark magic that was trapped within the note. Acting on instinct, she tore the note in half. The dark energy rippled and withdrew from the object, taking the form of a purplish black butterfly that was so dark in color it seemed to suck in the light around it. The insect began to frantically flutter away, but it didn’t get to far as Ladybug’s yo-yo snatched it out of the air. 

Ivan’s rocky form began to ripple as the same dark energy melted off of him. The former boulder disappeared into the parachute, Chat jumped in to help fish the boy out of the folds of fabric.

Ladybug looked around at the remaining chaos. The police in riot gear were beginning to close in, EMS were helping the injured, the panicked crowds still screamed, plumes of smoke rolled in the distance, and a demon beat its wings within her yo-yo. _What now?_

Hyperaware of the demon she still held in her hands she turned to Chat. He looked just as lost as she did. He had finished helping Ivan out of the trap and was helping the boy sit down against the tower. Once he was done he walked over to her, offering up his fist in a half-hearted celebration, she tapped it with her own.

“What now?”, he said, echoing her thoughts.

Ladybug’s fingers itched as the dark magic began to pulse again. She looked at her yo-yo, a thought sparking in the back of her mind. _Every action must have an equal and opposite reaction. In order to take, first you must give something of equal value._ She never would have thought that her physics and alchemy classes from her early years at Francois Dupont would be serving her well right now, but they gave her an idea. She already had a huge amount of power literally in her hands, what if she could purify it or reverse it? What if she could use it? Her magic stirred, as if encouraging her. She could do it, even if she didn’t know the exact spell.

With Chat beside her, the police cautiously approaching, she released the butterfly, holding it within a shield between her hands, and began the spell. 

She structured it the same way she would structure a blessing, she pushed a small strand of spirit into the akuma, and began to purify it. The second her magic touched the demon, it began to scream, Ladybug almost lost her concentration as the earsplitting howl rang through the air, causing Chat to flinch and the approaching officers to raise their guns. 

The scream was silenced as Ladybug changed tactics and reversed the direction of her magic, instead of pushing spirit into the demon, she began pulling out all of the dark magic, siphoning out every last bit of evil, purifying it as she went, until all was left was a pure white butterfly. 

Releasing the butterfly from its containment field she turned her attention to the magic. She couldn’t absorb it, and it was too unstable to weave into a spell, all Ladybug could do at this point was give it intent. _Heal,_ she thought, _fix what has been broken_, the magic balked, as if unwilling to take on an intention. _Fix what has been broken,_ she commanded, this time making her own will unbendable.

The magic yielded, and in a sudden burst, great swaths of light rushed out into the city, towards the injured civilians, and damaged buildings. Ladybug watched in amazement as the hole Chat had torn in the upper observation deck began to heal.

“Amazing”, Chat gaped at her, “How did you do that?”

Ladybug shrugged, “Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.”

“Really? You bring up Newton’s Laws during a time like this”, Chat scoffed, “and here I thought school was out for the day.”

The police had nearly made it to the base of the tower, and appeared to be as amazed by the healing magic as the two heroes were. Suddenly feeling very tired, Ladybug turned her eyes to Ivan, he was sitting on the ground, leaning against a pillar, she walked over to him, Chat followed.

“I was just so angry”, Ivan whispered, “and then a felt something land in my hand, and there was a voice in my head, and then I don’t remember anything. What did I do? Did anyone get hurt?”

Ladybug crouched beside him and smiled, placing a hand on his shoulder, “No one was hurt, and it wasn’t your fault. You were possessed by an akuma, a demon.”

Her reassurances seemed to help a little. Ladybug looked down to see a note, the one she had torn in half earlier. she picked up the piece of paper to see, written in messy handwriting that she immediately recognized as Kim’s:  
_ If you weren’t such a coward you would have asked her out already. _

Marinette didn’t know for sure who Kim was talking about, but she had a theory. And if she was right, then she had a feeling that Ivan’s feelings were returned, but she didn't want to meddle too much.

“There's nothing wrong with being cautious. Especially when it comes to your feelings. But that shouldn’t stop you from telling people how you feel”, Ladybug squeezed Ivan’s shoulder, “You'll know when the time is right.”

“How will I know?”

“You'll just _know.”_

Behind her Chat shifted, a strange growl rumbling through him, as he watched the officers recover from their shock and had resumed their advances.

“My Lady, we are about to have company”, Chat laid a hand on her shoulder, “and I'm not sure how the officers of the law will react to our presence.”

“We can't just leave him here alone, Chat”, Ladybug said as she stood, “What if they blame him for what the akuma did, what if he gets treated as the perpetrator rather than a victim?”

Chat looked conflicted, he knew she was right but he didn't want to get arrested. “Well they're coming to meet us whether we want them to or not, so what do we do?”

“Why don’t we go meet them?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The formation of officers had just gotten to the base of the Eiffel tower, they’d been moving at a snail’s pace, trying to make sure the threat had been neutralized, when the two masked heroes landed about 10 yards in front of them. The officers raised their weapons, shouting orders. 

The duo raised their hands, Ladybug took a half step forward and spoke.

“We mean no harm, we simply wanted to clear up a few things.”

The officers made no move to lower their weapons until a commanding voice called from the back.

“Stand down, they aren’t a threat!”, the formation parted to reveal someone that Marinette recognized, in fact she went to school with his daughter.

“Now”, said Officer Raincomprix, stepping forward, “What exactly do the two of you want to “clear up”?”

“Well, we first wanted to apologize for overstepping our boundaries, we didn't mean to cause law enforcement any trouble, we just wanted to help.”

“We also wanted to inform you”, Ladybug continued, not giving Officer Raincomprix any time to interject, “that all this chaos was the result of demon possession. The boy who was possessed was an unwilling host. All this”, she gestured around them, “isn’t his fault.”

She was going to say more, but Officer Raincomprix cut her off with a wave of his hand, “Look, no need to apologize. We aren’t going to arrest you or anything, you technically just saved the city, and repaired a significant amount of damage from the looks of it. Arresting you would be a PR nightmare.”

“As for the boy”, the officer continued, “our Magical Crisis Specialists already confirmed that this was a case of demonic possession. We know he's not at fault here, but we will need to take his statement.” He gestured for two officers to retrieve Ivan. “What the department is most interested in, is how you two were able to stop that thing when all of our demonic protocols proved to be completely ineffective.”

As officer Raincomprix spoke, a number of other individuals wearing business attire and police badges began gather, replacing the armored officers. A few journalists and film crews had also begun to push closer.

“This wasn’t an ordinary possession. This was caused by something called an akuma. It's a demon that doesn’t attach itself to the soul, but rather possesses the host through a physical object”, Ladybug explained, “it's able to fully control the host and, evidently, improves their abilities.” 

“And how do you know this?”, an older man with an austere, hawk-like familiar on his shoulder asked, “Who are you to know this information while the city’s top experts were left completely unaware?”

Chat bristled beside her, Ladybug could feel his shift in mood the moment the man spoke. Laying a hand on his arm she met his eyes briefly, an understanding passed between them before she addressed the man. 

“I can't tell you much, I just know that it's old magic, and that destroying the physical tether is what severs the connection between the demon and it's host. As for our identities, you should know as well as any mage that demons tend to hold grudges, even those with divine protection operate under pseudonyms in order to protect themselves from hellish vengeance”, Ladybug couldn’t help the feeling of satisfaction that surged through her as the man shifted uncomfortably, “as for now you may call me Ladybug.”

“And you can call me Chat Noir.”

The duo was saved from further questioning by a surge in noise from the reporters, who, having seen Ivan being escorted from the tower, had decided to mob the young man with questions. The two heroes excused themselves from the detectives and made their way towards the mob of clamoring reporters. Chat was the first to intervene.

_“Back off”,_ the feline hero growled, “He's been through enough today, leave him be.” 

Surprisingly, the crowd did back off, though the inhuman sound that had pealed from Chat’s throat made it pretty hard to argue with him.

Ladybug used the distraction to help the officers usher Ivan away, before joining Chat amongst the reporters. “I must agree with my friend here”, she said, giving what she hoped was a relaxed smile, “That young man is a victim, and bombarding him with questions won't help him recover.”

Before the two could turn away a chorus of questions exploded from the crowd.

“How do you plan on—", “—are your names?” ,“—the two of you w—” ,“Can we expect—", “—be safe?”, The cacophony echoed.

“Be silent and listen. For this is all I have to say”, Ladybug proclaimed in a voice so commanding that she surprised even herself, the crowd fell silent. “This was a one-time thing. The police now have the information they need in order to deal with any future threats of this nature, and I am not authorized to operate as the protector of this city, nor do I desire such a title. We were concerned citizens, who did what anyone would have done if they’d had the ability. And I'm sure I speak for the both of us”, she made eye contact with Chat Noir, who nodded as if he knew what she was going to say next, “when I say that we will not support those who may wish to imitate our actions by throwing themselves into danger. We were lucky today that the damage wasn’t worse.”

Suddenly filled with the need to get away from the noise, Ladybug turned to Chat, “Need a lift out of here?”

He smiled, wrapping an arm around her shoulder saying, “I would greatly appreciate it, my lady”, he gave a salute to the journalists, calling as the yo-yo pulled them into the air, “and you can call us Ladybug and Chat Noir!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ladybug landed them on an empty rooftop, about 10 blocks from her parent’s bakery. She turned to her companion and smiled, “You know how to get home from here?”

“I should be able to manage.” Chat grinned for a second, before dropping to a more serious tone, “Hey, about back there, I'm sorry about leaving all the talking to you it’s just...”

“It’s okay, I didn't exactly leave you a lot of room to talk”, she picked up where he trailed off, “Besides, I didn't exactly give you a lot of chances to speak.”

“Still, I feel bad for not having your back th—”

“You’ve had my back the entire time I've known you”, Ladybug interjected, holding out her hand, “I may not know your name, but I count you as a friend, and I'm glad to have met you. You were a good partner.”

Chat took her hand, smiling sadly, “We still can't know each other’s names, can we?”

“No, we shouldn’t risk a demon’s vengeance, just for a couple of names.”

“Well, in that case”, Chat lifted their joined hands, bringing hers to his lips, pressing a lingering kiss to her knuckles. He pulled away, “I bid the adieu, My Lady.”

Ladybug could feel her face heat up, and she couldn’t stop the snort that escaped her as she looked into his eyes, “Really? You’re never going to see me again, and this is how you want me to remember you?”

A giggle bubbled up in her chest as Chat looked at her in mock offense, the act dropped a second later, leaving the pair dissolving in a fit of laughter.

“Hey, you can't fault me for it”, Chat said as the laughter finally died down, “I’m saying goodbye to a beautiful woman whom I will most likely never see again, I had to be a bit of a _Cat_sonova.”

Ladybug let out a groan at the pun. Smiling fondly, she held out her fist Chat rested his against hers.

“Goodbye, Chat Noir.”

“Goodbye, Ladybug.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ill try to get the next chapter up before the weekend, but its gonna be a busy week.
> 
> as always, questions, comments, and advice is always enthusiastically appreciated!
> 
> also im trying to pick out akumas for some of the middle chapters, (Mr. Pigeon is already guaranteed) and I don't know which to pick, any suggestions (preferably from season 1 or early 2) would be appreciated.
> 
> thanks for reading!


	5. Aftermath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok so I know I said I was gonna have it done my Thursday but my weekend camping trip started about 12 hours earlier than it was supposed to and ive been without internet for the last 4 days. sorry for the lateness. ill try to have the next chapter up before the weekend.

It didn't take Marinette very long to find Tikki, as a matter of fact, Tikki had been the one to find her.

Not long after she and Chat Noir had separated, Ladybug landed in a secluded alleyway and Tikki came barreling towards her. 

“Marinette!”, her familiar cried as she impacted the witch’s chest.

“Tikki!”, Marinette choked in surprise at the force of the impact, wrapping her arms around the creature and holding her tight.

“You did so well”, Tikki exclaimed as she nestled into Marinette's arms, “I was so worried when I couldn’t find you right away, but by the time I did, you had help! Who was that guy?”

“I don’t know”, Marinette said, “he was wearing a mask to protect his identity, just like me. Speaking of which...”, Marinette looked down at herself, still wearing the spotted garb, “How to I change out of this? It’d kinda blow the whole “secret identity” thing if I just walked home looking like this.”

“Oh, that’s easy”, Tikki chirped, “just will it away, it's the same for summoning it but in reverse.”

Marinette took a second to will her transformation to drop. In a flash of pink and white, she was back to looking exactly as she had earlier this afternoon. She took her purse, which Tikki had brought back with her, and slung it over her shoulder. Now that she had a moment to breathe she could feel the fatigue of magic beginning to weigh on her.

Checking her phone, she saw a number of missed calls from her parents and Alya and Nino. Anxiety replaced any tiredness that had been there previously.

“Shit”, Marinette said as she began to make her way home, “this is going to be fun to explain.” The last thing Marinette wanted to do was lie, but she knew that it was for the best of everyone if she did.

Worry shot through her when she realized that she hadn’t received any calls from Adrien, she looked at Tikki, “Did Adrien say anything to you before you came back to me.”

Tikki shrugged, “Just to take care of you. And that he’d be fine.”

“Of course, he’d say that”, Marinette rolled her eyes as her stomach churned with worry, hopefully he wasn’t hurt, or lost, or kidnapped, or dead, or....

She stopped herself from spiraling further. He was probably fine.

“We really should go find him”, she said. Pulling her phone out to call him as she made her way towards where she’d last seen him.

She turned the corner, not far from where they'd been separated only to collide with someone.

“Oh, good”, a relieved voice sounded as hands steadied her, “Just who I was looking for.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chat Noir had landed on the fire escape where Plagg had been when he’d left him.

True to his form, the cat hadn’t moved a bit.

Adrien’s familiar looked up at him lazily, “You did good, kid! No one died, and you made a new friend.”

“How would you know that?”, Adrien chuckled fondly, bending down to scratch the black cat behind his ears, “You’ve been here the entire time.”

Plagg ducked out of reach of his gloved hands, “Put those claws away before you hurt someone, and by “someone” I mean me.”

Before Adrien could even ask how, the suit dissolved in a light crackle of green energy. 

“Cool.”

“Yeah, yeah, it's real neat”, Plagg grumbled, “if you ever need to summon the suit again, it's the same concept. Just in reverse.”

_Noted_, Adrien thought as he scooped up Plagg and climbed down the last few stairs of the fire escape, scratching the cat behind the ears.

Plagg purred loudly and leaned into the touch. He was a fairly normal looking familiar, especially when compared to familiars like Tikki, Wayzz, and Pollen. He was slightly larger than a normal housecat and was completely black. The only thing that set him apart from other cats was his abnormally long black whiskers, and strangely intelligent green eyes.

“I should really scram”, Plagg said after a second of peace, “can't have anyone seeing us. Might raise a few unwanted questions.”

Adrien had had Plagg for about 3 years now, and still no one knew about him. Plagg appeared to him just before he had enrolled in school. The moment the boy had laid eyes on the cat he knew that his father would not allow him to have a familiar. Gabriel Agreste hated familiars, even going so far as to renounce his own familiar at a young age. However, despite Gabriel's hatred for fae, Adrien’s mother had had a familiar, a peacock like creature named Duusu, who had disappeared when his mother had. 

Even when his mother and Duusu were around, Gabriel frequently voiced his dislike for “fae bastards” and always claimed that Emelie would be better off renouncing her familiar. His mother had always stood up for her familiar, and allowed Duusu accompany her or Adrien everywhere, much to his father’s dismay.

Adrien had loved Duusu, the bird always kept him out of trouble as a toddler, pulling him away from danger or using her feathers block him from running away from his parents. His mother’s familiar had acted very much like a nanny to him. Losing his mother also meant he had lost Duusu as well.

He never had the chance to hear Duusu’s voice. Why had she never spoken to him? Had his father forbade it? 

Adrien was pulled from his memories as Plagg wiggled out of his arms. Landing silently on the ground. 

“I’ll be wandering around for most of the day, maybe I can find some camembert”, Plagg mused as he began to walk down the alley, “I’ll see you at home.”

Plagg had adopted the habit of wandering nearby whenever Adrien was at school, or work, or anywhere in public. Usually he pretended to be a stray of some kind, and would use his kitten like eyes to manipulate cheese and other snacks out of any shopkeepers he could.

Plagg paused before he could reach the end of the alleyway, “Oh, and you may want to try to find Pigtails, you guys got separated in a pretty nasty manner.”

Adrien felt a stab of anxiety in his chest. Pigtails was Plagg’s nickname for Marinette. She had been knocked to the ground by a panicked mob last he’d seen her, hopefully Tikki had found her and helped her. He’d never forgive himself if anything happened to her. 

Pulling out his phone to call her, Adrien realized that his phone was dead. 

“Shit”, he said, “I’m sure Natalie isn’t happy that I haven’t checked in yet.”

Deciding his best course of action was to return to where he and Marinette had been separated, he said goodbye to Plagg and hurried off. 

His anxiety spiked when he found his destination, but didn't find his friend. 

“Okay”, Adrien said, taking a deep breath to calm his nerves, “She probably went to the bakery, that’s where we were headed. Yeah. She probably went home. She’s definitely not dying in an alley somewhere. Shes fine.”

Worry continued to eat at him as he began to walk once more. Turning towards the general direction of the bakery, Adrien picked up the pace. Hoping to get there as soon as possible.

Adrien rounded a corner at a brisk pace only to collide with someone smaller than him. 

Acting on instinct he reached out his hands to steady the person he had almost knocked over. Quickly recognizing the raven black pigtails, and the familiar she was holding, Adrien's anxiety melted.

“Oh, good. Just the person I was looking for”, Adrien said, almost high on the relief of finding her. 

Before he could say anything more, Marinette released Tikki and wrapped him in a tight hug. Pulling back a second later she smiled at him, “I'm glad you're okay, I was worried. Tikki said you were still stuck in the mob when she left you.”

At the mention of her name Tikki landed on the witch’s shoulder, buzzing happily at Adrien.

“Yeah, I was able to escape not long after Tikki left me”, Adrien explained, “after that I kinda hid out in an alleyway until all the chaos was over”, Adrien hoped that alibi would be enough, “what was all that anyway?”

“No idea”, Marinette answered quickly, “but we should really get home, I'm sure my parents and Alya are worried. Have you called anyone?”

“My phone is dead”, Adrien admitted, “I haven’t contacted anyone.”

“Alright, I'm gonna call maman and tell everyone not to worry”, Marinette said, pulling out her phone.

They made their way to the bakery and Marinette called her mother. Adrien could hear Sabine’s worry as she answered the phone. 

“Maman? Yeah, we are okay, Adrien and I got separated and I was so worried about looking for him that I didn't even think about call you. I so sorry, tell Alya she can chew me out in a bit, we are almost home”, Marinette paused as her mother responded.

“WHAT!? WHAT DO YOU—?”, Marinette burst out, switching into mandarin. Her and her mother exchanged words so fast that Adrien’s practiced ear struggled to understand anything his friend was saying. 

As suddenly as the hurried conversation had started it ended. Marinette sighed, switching back to French as she said, “Okay maman, we’ll be back soon. Love you.”

Marinette hung up and looked to Adrien, exasperated, “Alya and Nino apparently went demon hunting, and only just now got back to the bakery, so at least we won't have a lecture from either of them when we get back.”

Marinette handed him her phone, “You may want to check in as well.”

“Yeah”, Adrien sighed, preparing himself for a verbal lashing as he dialed the number for Natalie’s desk phone.

The phone picked up on the first ring.

“Gabriel Agreste’s office, state your business”, Natalie’s stone-cold voice answered.

“Natalie, I was just calling to let you know that my phone is dead, that’s why I haven’t been able to check in.”

“Oh, Adrien, good. I was about to send your bodyguard out to retrieve you. With that demon attack downtown, we can't be too careful. I assume you are safe with your friends?”

“Yes, I am. I'll charge my phone as soon as I am able and I’ll text regular updates from then on.”

“Very good. You are expected back at the estate by curfew.”

She hung up the phone before Adrien even had the chance to respond. He handed the phone back to Marinette. “Everything’s good on my end.”

Marinette smiled, “Good, hopefully we can still have a decent afternoon.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It wasn’t long after Adrien had talked to Natalie that they made it to the bakery.

No sooner had the two opened the door were the two swept up into a bone crushing hug.

“We were so worried when neither of you called, especially after Alya and Nino said that you were supposed to meet here”, Marinette's hulk of a father spoke as he released them from his embrace, “We are all very glad you are okay, Alya and Nino are upstairs waiting for you.”

Sabine, who was helping a customer, waved to them from behind the register as the pair made their way upstairs.

Alya mobbed them both the minute they made it into the living room.

“Girl, holy shit, we were so worried about you, why didn't you come back right away do you have any idea—“, Alya was cut off by Marinette’s hand.

“You don’t get to lecture us for getting separated by a mob when the two of you went after the demon even after I _specifically_ told you that it was a bad idea.”

Alya shrank a little under Marinette withering gaze, “Okay, fine. Mistakes were made all around. We shouldn’t dwell on them.”

As the two girls bickered, Adrien made his way to the couch, giving a fist bump to Nino, who was seated on the loveseat beside it.

Marinette moved to argue, “I don’t think that—”

“Mistakes were made, Marinette”, Alya cut off her best friend before she plopped back down on the loveseat next to Nino, Trixx jumping onto her lap, “Live and learn, stop living in the past.”

Marinette, seemingly too tired to argue, sat down heavily next to Adrien, grabbing a pastry from the plate on the coffee table, giving a portion to Tikki before taking a bite herself.

As the two made themselves comfortable Alya gave them the rundown of what she had seen, which hadn’t been much as she and Nino had only made it to the square about a minute before the akuma had been captured. 

“—and then there was this blast of light, and it started healing things, that must have been some serious magic, I'm not sure how one person could do that without serious ritual work. And then she started talking and— Oh! It's on again good.” 

Alya turned their attention to the television, which had been quietly running the news, turning up the volume so they could catch the footage of Ladybug’s speech.

_“...a one-time thing. The police now have the information they need in order to deal with any future threats of this nature, and I am not authorized to operate as the protector of this city, nor do I desire such a title. We were concerned citizens, who...”_

Marinette hadn’t seen herself as Ladybug yet, and the appearance was startling. It was strange, seeing herself look so different.

The suit looked the same as she remembered, but her hood had two graceful, ribbonlike that swooped behind her head, reminding Marinette ever so slightly of antennae. She noted a few other details of the outfit she’d not previously noticed before moving on to the more startling observations.

Her face was other worldly. In a way similar to Chat’s. The whites of her eyes were a very pale blue, that shined like opals. Her irises were a much darker blue, shifting from bluebell to indigo to cerulean and back in a way reminiscent of fire, though the pupils were still humanlike, not the slit’s Chat Noir’s had been. 

Both Ladybug and Chat Noir had an ageless quality about them, their faces looked regal and they stood confidently, neither of them looked completely human. No wonder the reporters had listened so easily, the two heroes looked rather terrifying.

Marinette was so distracted by the image of herself on the news that she had forgotten to tune back in for Alya’s commentary. Luckily, Alya and Nino were too distracted discussing the day’s events that they didn't notice.

The fatigue from earlier began to creep up on her again. As she and Adrien contentedly observed the conversation between their two friends, her eyes began to close and her body became dead weight. Marinette barely noticed Adrien swinging her legs up onto his lap before she was well and truly asleep.

~~~~~~~~~~~

“Marinette. Hey. Come on girl, my mom is still making dinner. You can't sleep the rest of the evening away. Get up”

Marinette felt something poke her face, then shake her shoulder. The young witch stirred and sat up, glaring at Alya for disturbing her slumber. 

Alya snickered before moving on to Adrien, who had fallen asleep with sitting up with Marinette's legs draped across his lap.

_They're so cute, it should be illegal,_ the redhead thought as she began to nudge Adrien, who awoke almost immediately.

“Come on sunshine, we need to get to my house for dinner. You can sleep when you're dead.”

Adrien looked over to see Marinette lay back down as if to go back to sleep. Smiling, he poked at her leg, she mumbled in response. A flash of red caught Adrien's eye, looking to the back of the couch he saw Tikki sneaking towards the young witch.

Before Adrien could say anything, he heard a sweet voice in his head, _“Don’t worry, I know _exactly _how to get her to wake up.”_ Tikki leapt gracefully into the air and flattened herself out, belly flopping very heavily onto Marinette's stomach.

_“Ooooff”_, Marinette grunted from the force, sitting up reflexively.

Alya and Adrien promptly lost it. Their laughs drew Nino back into the room, upon seeing what had happened, he also joined his girlfriend in cracking up.

“Tikkiiii”, Marinette groaned, still somewhat drowsy, “That wasn’t necessary.”

Adrien couldn’t hear Tikki’s response, but judging by the way the familiar puffed out her chest, it must have been something sassy. The three friends began cracking up all over again.

With Marinette now well and truly awake, the group began their trek to Alya’s house, bidding farewell to Tom and Sabine on their way out through the bakery doors.

~~~~~~~~

The rest of the evening was a rather uneventful one. Adrien checked in twice with Natalie after his phone had been charged. And the meal that Alya’s mother had made was as delicious as you’d expect from a professional chef.

After dinner the four of them piled onto the couch, eventually settling on watching whatever superhero movies Alya decided. By the end of the first movie, they were a tangle of limbs and familiars. Tikki and Wayzz had taken up residents on the back of the couch, while Trixx was currently trying to burrow beneath Nino’s thigh.

By the middle of the second movie, both Adrien and Marinette had drifted off to sleep once more, Adrien draped over her lap and Marinette leaning heavily on Nino. This continued until Alya and Nino began the third movie, the opening credits had barely finished when Adrien's phone buzzed, waking him from his slumber.

Fishing his phone out of his pocket, Adrien sighed, “Yeah, that’s my bodyguard. I need to leave soon if I want to get home by curfew.”

Nino and Alya groaned in harmony.

“I know we are lucky that he lets you out at all, but really dude it's not even that late”, Nino complained, “you're almost 17, you're not a child.”

“I know, I know”, Adrien agreed with his best friend, “but if I don’t cooperate now, he’ll be far less likely to let me out in the future. Need I remind you that he still doesn’t approve of you or Alya.”

Alya let out a barking laugh, “Oh yeah I forgot I told him to take that stick out of his ass last year, I don’t think he ever liked me but I doubt that I've done myself any favors.”

Adrien laughed at the memory. At the time he’d been terrified, but now he could look back on it and laugh.

“Yeah well at least he approves of Marinette, I think she’s the reason he lets you hang out with us”, Nino chuckled.

“Well, she did win a number of his competitions, and she’s never told him to take any sticks out of his ass”, Adrien said, with a pointed look at Alya.

Marinette, who was still mostly asleep at this point, mumbled, “I may be polite but that doesn’t mean that I like him. Fuck that guy.” 

The three friends laughed again as Marinette laid immediately drifted back to sleep.

Adrien looked to Alya, “Does she need a ride home?”, he asked, pointing to Marinette.

“Nah, I’ll text her parents and let them know that she’ll be sleeping here tonight, they won't mind since it's not a school night.”

Adrien nodded, “I assume you're going to be staying here a little bit longer?”, he asked to Nino.

The boy nodded, “Yeah, I'm gonna spend a little bit more time with my girl”, he said, slinging his arm around Alya’s shoulder, “let me know if you want to play video games any time this weekend. I've got nothing planned for the next few days.”

Adrien knew he had a photoshoot that was scheduled to last for the next two days, so he didn't make any promises as he waved goodbye to his friends, thanked Alya’s mother for the meal, and took his leave.

The ride home was quick and silent. When he arrived home, he was greeted by even more silence. Opening his door, he walked in stripped off his clothes, and flopped onto his bed.

Plagg appeared seemingly out of nowhere, draping himself across Adrien’s back. The cat purred, and seconds later Adrien was asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always I would love to hear from you! im trying to think of another Akuma to use in the plot, ive already picked mr pigeon, but I need at least one more.
> 
> thanks for reading!


	6. Back at it Again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Halloween!  
Did you know that pigeons can reach speeds of up to 110 mph? Thats terrifying.
> 
> This chapter is a long one, and I have a busy weekend ahead of me, there probably won't be another update for a lil bit. 
> 
> thanks to everyone who helped me brainstorm akumas to use.

Even though three days had passed since the akuma incident, which had been dubbed the Stoneheart Akuma, it was still all the class could talk about that following Monday. Most of the conversation was stirred up by Alya who would happily share her theories with anyone who asked. 

The conversation during their free period had forked from discussing the identities of the superheroes to debating on who the akuma victim was. No footage of Ivan had been released to the public, his identity had mercifully been spared, shielding him from the most direct of the criticism.

It didn't keep him from being even more reserved than usual that day.

“I just hope that we don’t have another one”, Rose said, “The police didn't give us any useful information in their press release, what are we supposed to do if there is another attack?”

“I don’t think there's really a lot we can do to help”, Sabrina piped up, “My dad said that the police have a division specifically working on how to deal with any future threats. All we can do is try our best to stay safe.”

The class nodded in general agreement.

“Well, I hope that anyone who consorts with demons is locked away for good”, Chloe declared haughtily, stroking the familiar in her lap, “The police aren’t doing their jobs if whoever was possessed by that _thing_ isn’t behind bars. I mean, that kid is basically a terrorist. He ruined my afternoon shopping excursion.”

Marinette could feel Ivan shrinking into his chair behind her. Irritation spiked in her and she retorted without thinking.

“Chloe you know as well as anyone that demonic possession if not something that happens with consent. That kid is more of a victim than any of us. Besides, if anyone is going to be labelled a terrorist it should be whoever told you it was a good idea for you to leave the house wearing those shoes with that belt.”

If Marinette had to admit, the polished leather belt didn't actually clash all that badly with the soft black suede shoes that Chloe was wearing, but it was the first thing Marinette could pinpoint, and her main goal had been to distract the class, most of all Ivan, from the negativity that Chloe was spewing.

Chloe huffed indignantly, but backed down. Returning to her phone and stroking Pollen’s bright yellow fur, she pretended to pay no attention to the rest of the class. The whole group, Alya, Adrien and Nino included, watched her in shocked silence. 

It was Kim who broke the silence first, laughing, “I’ve known Mari for how long? And it still surprises me when she decides to clap back. Damn girl, when did you get mean!?”

“Kim you know damn well when I got mean.”

“Don’t remind me”, Kim laughed, running hand through his hair, “I don’t think my eyebrows ever fully grew back from that.”

Just like that the tension broke and the conversation went back to the less serious topic of whether or not Ladybug and Chat Noir were dating.

“Are you kidding me!?”, Alix argued, “Ladybug is a straight up 10. That bitch has her life together. There is no way she’s dating that furry!”

“Hey”, Adrien cut in, almost sounding offended, “Chat Noir is not a furry!”

“Yeah”, Nino said, backing up his bro, “if I remember correctly both he and Ladybug had animal themed suits. If he’s a furry then Ladybug is too.”

“Babe, you make a good point there”, Alya answered, laying a hand on her boyfriends back, “but Ladybug didn't have cat ears or a tail. She may have had a ladybug aesthetic, but Chat Noir was rocking a totally different vibe.”

Adrien opened his mouth to respond, “But wh—”,

“Two words, boys. LEATHER. _CATSUIT_.” Alix interrupted, looking rather smug as both Adrien’s and Nino’s faces fell. The boys were silent for a moment as they processed her words

“Well damn”, Nino said, reevaluating the argument, feeling a bit lost, “I guess he is a furry.”

“Bro”, Adrien said, looking betrayed, “I can't believe you're abandoning me like this. How could you?”

“Look, Adrien, dude, their evidence is strong. I mean”, Nino continued, a deranged light shining in his eyes, “his zipper.” Realization hit the young man, who looked at his familiar as if for help. Wayzz didn't offer up any insight. “His zipper had a bell on it. Holy shit how were we so blind.”

The whole class started to laugh, including Ivan, Marinette happily noticed. 

The debate continued to rage, Marinette was thankful they'd dropped the subject of her alter ego’s love life in favor of roasting Chat. The class was pretty unevenly split, with most of the class falling on Alya and Alix’s side of the argument. The only exceptions being Adrien, Rose and Mylene. Even Chloe had weighed in to agree with the rest of the class, Marinette had, mercifully, been able to stay out of the debate under the guise of sketching out designs in her sketchbook.

“Marinette”, Alya called, pulling Marinette into the conversation for the first time that period, “help us settle a debate, these three”, Alya gestured to Adrien, Rose, and Mylene, “are too innocent to realize the truth.”

“What truth?”, Marinette asked, pretending as if she hadn’t been listening in this whole time.

“Is Chat Noir a furry?”

“No.”

The class erupted in chaos. Adrien shouted in triumph, moving to sit on her desk.

“Sorry, Nino”, Adrien declared, dramatically draping himself across Marinette's desk, “but Mari here is my new best friend.”

Marinette giggled, poking Adrien with her pencil, “Since when do you call me “Mari”?”

Adrien grinned, turning his head to avoid the pencil, “Since you became my new best friend”.

Marinette rolled her eyes.

“But girl, if he's not a furry then explain why he had that suit on hand”, Alya asked smugly, as if she had found some irrefutable evidence, you don’t just have stuff like that unless you use it.

“How do you know he had it on hand?”, Marinette asked innocently, “If there's anything I know it's clothes, his suit looked to be the same as Ladybugs, and if I had to bet, I’d say that those aren’t your ordinary superhero costumes.”

“You say that like there are normal spandex body suits”, Alix retorted, looking skeptical.

“What I mean is that it looked like a modified mage armor or something. It was conjured.”

The whole class paused, taking in this new perspective.

“Ok but even if he did conjure it, it still means that he wanted it to look like that, right?”, Alya asked thoughtfully, “I'm not an expert on conjuring, but I know that there has to be a specific intent.”

Marinette nodded. “There does have to be an intent. But your viewing conjuration through an illusionist’s perspective. Right? How do your illusions work when considering details?”

Alya hummed in thought, she excelled in the school of illusion magic, “The more specific of an intent I put on the magic, the better the illusion is and the easier if is to weave. Illusion magic doesn’t work well when it has wiggle room.”

Alya waved her hand to where Trixx was sitting on her desk. A perfect copy of the familiar appeared right beside her, matching the movement of the fox exactly. Alya waved her hand again and shimmering form appeared on the other side of Trixx. This time the fox wobbled like a mirage, every movement it attempted cause the illusion to dissolve slightly around the edges. With a snap of her fingers, Alya dissolved both illusions, leaving Trixx sitting on the desk, looking proudly at her witch.

“Well”, Marinette continued to explain, “The exact opposite is true when conjuring.”

Conjuration was a difficult school to master, and Marinette was the only one in their class who had any inclination towards it, she actually excelled at it to the point of confusing her teachers.

“When you conjure something, you're solidifying your own magic and melding it with energy from the other planes. The more specific you make your requests the harder it is to complete the conjuring, and the more of your energy it uses.”

Marinette stood, moving around the desk to allow herself more room and pointed at Juleka, “Quick! Juleka, name an object!”

Juleka froze for a second before blurting out, “Teapot!”

“Teapot”, Marinette repeated. Weaving her magic into the classic conjuration spell, she called forth the object, within seconds a small, simple teapot appeared between her hands on the desk in front of her.

“See?”, Marinette picked up the pot and handed it to Adrien, who examined it before passing it to the rest of the class. The pot had a small S shaped handle and seemed to be colored with every color imaginable, though the colors blended badly, forming a strange shimmering blue/brown. The lid didn't quite fit on the pot and nearly fell off a few times as the pot was passed around the classroom.

“Now that was a conjuration with very little intent put into it”, Marinette continued her explanation, “It may not look great or be perfectly efficient. But it works, and it took very little time or energy on my part.” Her magic purred happily as it usually did when she used it.

“Okay, now someone give me a picture of a very specific teapot”, Marinette continued with her demonstration.

“I have _just_ the teapot”, Chloe proclaimed as she passed her phone forward, displaying a picture of an ornately made of ornate flowing pieces of glass and ceramic, “it was a gift from the president of Italy to daddy. It was made by one of the finest glass workers in the country, she uses magic to meld multiple material types together. We drank tea from it when the prime minister of the UK visited.”

Marinette took the phone, looking at the variety of pictures Chloe had of this teapot, thankfully there were a number of angles, and the photos were a good enough quality that Marinette could see most of the details. After studying the pictures for a few minutes, Marinette handed the phone back to Chloe and began to regather her magic.

The spell took much longer to weave. The magic and energy hardened and shifted so often that Marinette had to re weave certain parts multiple times before she was satisfied with the result. Releasing her magic, she allowed the conjuration to solidify on the desk in front of her.

The moment she let go of her magic the world faded and tilted. Marinette's body pitched forward, she probably would have hit the ground had Adrien not appeared beside her and steadied her.

Opening her eyes Marinette saw the entire class looking at her in a mix of awe and concern. She recovered quickly and stood on her own, waving Adrien off, though he remained close by, watching carefully. 

Marinette turned her attention to the teapot. It was perfect. Each detail in place, every color shined through perfectly. With immense satisfaction, Marinette picked it up and passed it to Alya, who examined it closely before passing it on. 

“So, as you can see it takes significantly more energy to conjure with specificity and it won't last as long as the first teapot will. So if we are operating under the assumption that their suits were summoned for utility then it is incredibly likely that Chat Noir and Ladybug didn't have a lot of say in how their suits looked because they conjured for efficiency rather than aesthetic.”

Marinette didn't want to say that the aesthetic was likely due to the magic being channeled through their familiars, it wasn’t a good idea to give them all the pieces of the puzzle.

“Okay fine”, Kim said, “You make some good points, maybe Chat Noir isn’t a furry, but you have to admit. He did look pretty hot in that leather catsuit.”

The whole class groaned, and the conversation shifted into a game of smash or pass with the superheroes being the main subject. Both Marinette and Adrien turned a little pink as the discussion progressed.

Adrien looked to Marinette, concern shining in his eyes. “You okay? You were in the spell for a while, you may have over extended yourself a bit.”

“I'm fine”, Marinette waved off his concern, she honestly felt perfectly okay, she wasn’t sure why she almost fell, “I think it's kinda like when you stand up to fast. You know, how sometimes your vision tunnels and stuff?”

Her answer seemed to, thankfully, satisfy him. The two tuned back into the class conversation just in time to hear Kim say that he would, in fact, smash both Ladybug and Chat Noir.

“I'm just sayin—”

They never got to hear the end of his sentence. He was interrupted by a violent shudder. Everyone in the room felt it. That cold energy, that quick pulse of dark magic.

Marinette and Adrien locked eyes.

“Akuma.”

The class erupted in panic, finally calling the attention of Mr. Damocles, who had been “supervising” them for this period.

“Quiet down, what are you lot shouting about now?”, their principal demanded, unhappily putting down the book he’d been reading, “Quiet! All of you!”

“Sir, did you not feel that!?”, Mylene spoke, her voice quivering, “It was an akuma.”

“Feel what? Is this another one of those pranks? Just because I don’t have an inclination for magic doesn’t mean that you'll be able to pull the wool over my eyes so easily. The akuma nonsense is over, you're imagining things.”

“With all due respect, sir”, Marinette said, “I was nearby when the first akuma appeared, I’ll never forget that feeling. You should alert the school of the potential danger.”

“Don’t tell me how to do my job, Miss Dupain-Cheng”, Mr. Damocles huffed, “I've been running this school for 13 years now, I think I would know w—”

The window exploded.

Wings and chaos reigned. Feathers flew. Students screamed. Adrien sneezed.

The class ducked for cover.Marinette grabbed for Tikki, holding her close. Adrien grabbed Marinette, pulling her under a desk, shielding her body with his own as beaks began shredding anything in sight. Screams could be heard from the other students.

“Nino!”, Adrien shouted over the chaos, “Do the thing!”

“What!?”

“Do the thing! The bubble!”

“Oh! Yeah!”

A flash of green and yellow light illuminated the classroom, and a zing of energy ran through Marinette as a field of magic passed over her. Pushing out all of the birds from the classroom. Opening her eyes, she found herself face to face with Adrien, who was still rather thoroughly wrapped around her. 

Blushing furiously, they two extricated themselves from their tangled position. Adrien helped Marinette to her feet. The two looked around the room in wonder. 

The class was surrounded by a bubble of green tinted magic, that shimmered like a mirage. Nino and Wayzz sat in the very middle, deep in focus as they held the spell. outside the shield pigeons flew around furiously, pecking and beating at the walls of magic.

Just as Marinette was about to ask how long Nino would be able to hold the spell a voice boomed outside their window.

“COME MY FRIENDS, WE HAVE BUSINESS ELSEWHERE!”

The pigeons abandoned the bubble to join the voice. Nino dropped the spell and the class ran to the shattered window just in time to see a man in a pigeon outfit fly off with the help of a few hundred pigeons.

“Is that—?”, Kim asked.

“That guy who feeds the pigeons at the park?”, Juleka finished his question.

“That is indeed Mr. Ramier. I am 97.93% sure of it”, Max confirmed.

“Well shit.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

After about 10 minutes of milling about the classroom, Mr. Damocles excused school for the day, many students stayed, unwilling to brave the storm of pigeons that occasionally flew overhead. A significant portion of the student body had found themselves in the library, watching the news for updates on the akuma attack.

The footage mainly consisted of some poor reporter getting harassed by pigeons, with the occasional glimpse of the police attempting to contain the threat. Needless to say, the attempt was not going well. 

After about an hour it became clear that the police where making no progress. The news coverage switched to an image of the mayor, standing in front of a pale blue curtain at a podium. 

“Good afternoon, citizens of Paris. I will make this quick, considering there is a feral flock of demon pigeons currently terrorizing the city. I come to you today not only to advise you to stay inside, and avoid being out in the open, but to ask for the help of two people. Ladybug and Chat Noir, if you are out there, if you are listening, we require your assistance. Please, the great city of Paris needs your help...”

Marinette didn't listen to the rest of the mayor’s plea for help, she looked to Tikki, who only nodded knowingly. Great. Now she just had to figure out how to slip out unnoticed.

Turns out slipping away was easier than she had thought, for as soon as Alya learned that Ladybug and Chat Noir might make an appearance, she grabbed her phone and ran for the door, Nino racing after her shouting about safety.

Running out the school’s back entrance, Marinette and Tikki hid behind the dumpster and she called up her transformation. With almost no effort, the suit reappeared. 

Smiling, Marinette scratched Tikki behind the ears, “Stay hidden, can't have you blowing my cover.”

Tikki wished her luck as Ladybug swung out of the alley towards the chaos.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ladybug landed atop one of the higher buildings in the city, giving herself a decent vantage point as she observed the demonic flock of pigeons tear through the city.

She was watching the pigeons descend onto a food truck with ravenous efficiency when her back straightened, something alerting her to a new presence. 

Chat Noir dropped down beside her, “Fancy seeing you here, Spots”, he grinned at her, “I assume you also heard the mayor’s cry for help?”

“I told you not to call me—“, she paused, narrowing her eyes, “Huh, I didn't know you had fangs, are those new?”

Chat paused, thrown by the question, “No, I had them last time I transformed. I mean you have fangs, why wouldn’t I?”

“I have _fangs!?_”, Ladybug touched her tongue to her teeth, sure enough both sets of canines had sharpened and lengthened, “What the fuck? How did I not notice these before?”

“You were a little preoccupied at the moment”, Chat pointed out, leaning in, “and besides”, he grinned, showing off his canines, “mine are bigger.”

Ladybug laughed and shoved him lightly, “Alright enough chit chat. What have you seen from Mr. Pigeon over there.”

“Really? You're sticking with that name? Not “bird brain” or “feather face” or how about “the abomin—”

Ladybug cut him off with a hand over his mouth, “is this going to be a thing with you?’

Chat pulled her hand from his mouth, grinning, “Always.”

Ladybug groaned, “Great.”

“Any idea where the akuma is?”

“No, he hasn’t gotten close enough for me to get any useful information”, Ladybug answered, “but I haven’t been watching for very long. You showed up not long after I got here. All I know is that he controls pigeons.”

“Yeah, I gathered as much on my way over.”

The duo continued to strategize, observing the birds as they mobbed anything that moved. While they spoke, they watched Mr. Ramier pull the bird whistle from around his neck, giving it a blow, the pigeons immediately fell into formation as they moved towards the park.

“Well I'm not sure where the akuma is”, Chat said, “but I’d say our first step would be to get that whistle away from him. Even if it doesn’t have the akuma, it’d still leave him powerless.”

Ladybug nodded, “Glad we’re on the same page”, she paused thinking a bit, “before we run off I want to try something. We won't have the element of surprise for so long. I want to use it to our advantage as much as possible.”

Gathering her magic up she wove a conjuring spell with only the intent of summoning something useful. Almost immediately long, fine strands fell appeared out of thin air around her. There were so many, they covered the rooftop they were standing on. Thicker than spiderwebs but just as invisible. Perfect.

“What are you supposed to do with this?”, Chat asked, pulling the threads out of his hair.

“I have an idea”, Ladybug focused once more, these threads were made from her magic, imbuing a little more into them shouldn’t be too hard right?

The animation spell leeched into the strands the minute she started weaving it. The threads floated, awaiting orders. The second the plan was fully formed in her mind the strands flew off, looking almost invisible as they drifted into the air.

Chat looked at her in confusion, “Am I gonna get any explanation?”

Ladybug opened her mouth to answer but trailed off as the animation spell thrashed, stumbling slightly she doubled down on holding the spell.

Chat steadied her, searching her face in concern, “Ladybug, are you alright?”

Ladybug waited for the spell to stabilize before answering slowly, “Fine. Holding concentration. Spell.”

Chat seemed to understand what she was saying. He kept his hands on her arms for support, looking up his stomach dropped, “Oh, shit.”

Before Ladybug could muster up the thought to ask what was happening a voice boomed.

“OH! WHAT DO WE HAVE HERE? A FEW HEROS TRYING TO STOP ME? WELL MY FRIENDS, WE’LL JUST HAVE TO TAKE CARE OF THEM.”

Chat grabbed her, holding her close and shielding her body with his own, crouching down as the pigeons descended on them with murderous intent. Her partner sneezed.

The chaos surrounded them, though their suits protected them from most of the beaks. Ladybug continued to hold concentration on the animation spell, but managed to grit out, “Chat, the roof. Get us out of here.”

Thankfully, Chat understood immediately. Pressing his palm to the roof below them, he pushed hi magic into it. Immediately cracks began to spread, seconds later they fell through the roof and into the room below. An office building. 

Without hesitation, Chat scooped up Ladybug and raced for the cubicles. Hiding under a desk, out of sight just as the pigeons above recovered from their confusion and flooded into the floor.

“How much longer on that spell?”, Chat breathed, watching her closely.

Her brow was furrowed in concentration as she answered, “Give me a minute, maybe less.”

It was the longest minute of Chat’s life, the pigeons continued to fly around the office, but seemed unable to see them where they hid. He held his breath, the last thing they needed was for a sneeze to give away their position.

It felt like hours had passed by the time Ladybug whispered, “Done. If we make it to the Arc de Triomphe, make sure to go low.”

Chat decided to not ask what the hell she meant, he’d figure it out eventually, “Okay, I'm gonna get us out of here now”, he said, placing his hand on the ground once again.

Ladybug watched in fascination as the carpet beneath them began to dissolve, “That’s amazing.”

The compliment was simple, but it warmed Chat all the way to the tips of his toes, no one really complimented his magic like that. Ever. 

In seconds a hole in the ground appeared beneath them. 

“Ladies first.”

Ladybug rolled her eyes, dropping through the hole and into the floor below. He followed seconds later.

The floor below was also an office, though with a slightly different layout. They needed to get to the ground floor, but didn't want to take the elevator, in case the pigeons noticed the movement, which left them with only one other option. The stairs.

Chat looked down at the dozens of flights of stairs they'd have to take, “Well, looks like we’ll get our steps in for the day.”

“Maybe we can take an easier route”, Ladybug said as she swung her yo-yo, wrapping it around the upper railing. She wrapped an arm around Chat’s waist and the two of them leapt over the railing, repelling them down the center of the stairwell.

Marinette took a moment to marvel at how easily she could hold the both of them up, it felt almost effortless. She wasn’t normally that strong, right? It had to be the suit. Right?

They had made it about halfway down when a great crash sounded above them and the sound of fluttering wings filled the stairwell. Without thinking, Ladybug through Chat and herself towards the nearest door, untethering her yo-yo in the process. 

The two hit the ground running, in moments they were through the door and running through yet another floor of offices. 

“Where to now?”, Chat asked as they continued to weave their way through the cubicles.

“There”, Ladybug said, pointing to the large, open window.

“Seriously!?”, her partner squeaked.

“Yeah. Trust me. Please.”

“Of course. You haven’t led me wrong yet.”

The two picked up speed, Chat sent out a small bolt of energy, which cracked the window. The two crashed through the glass as if it hadn’t even been there at all.

Midair, Ladybug scooped up Chat, releasing her yo-yo, she lassoed a railing high above them, the two swung away. The sounds of angry pigeons faded behind them.

Landing on the street the two separated. Breaking into a run, they headed for the Arc de Triomphe. Even at full sprint the horde of pigeons was on them in minutes. This time, however, the two were ready this time around. 

Spinning her yo-yo in a wide arc, Ladybug forced the pigeons back. The birds settled on flying in large circles just out of reach of the weapons. Their master remained well out of range occasionally blowing his whistle and directing the birds. 

The battle appeared to have reached a stalemate, the akuma unable to hit them, while still staying well out of range of their weapons, when Chat caught Ladybug’s eye and grinned wickedly, “Race ya.”

Ladybug, catching on, smiled, “Remember to go low.”

Chat nodded, “Ready? _GO!”_

And with that the two heroes were off, each in a different direction. Ladybug knew she was faster with her yo-yo than Chat was with his staff, so she opted to take a less direct route. 

Ladybug swung her way through the city, the pigeons hot in pursuit, they were beginning to close the gap, but she was almost to her destination. Thankfully the entire city seemed to have heeded the mayor’s warnings to stay indoors. Everyone except for two people. 

What idiots would be out here during a time like this?

Oh wait. She took a closer look. Those were her idiots.

Ladybug bit back a groan and veered upward, hoping to lead the pigeons on a path that didn't involve pulverizing Alya and Nino. 

The pigeons did not cooperate. 

Upon seeing the two new humans and their familiars, most of the flock veered away towards the new targets.

With more precision than she thought she had, Ladybug pulled tight on the string and picked her legs, shooting herself back towards her friends. Landing in front of them, just in time to stop the pigeons from shredding them.

Alya, who was currently filming on her phone, gave a small shriek as Ladybug deflected the onslaught with her yo-yo.

The flock pulled back, staying just out of reach of her swings.

“Ladybug! How is the fight going?”, Alya began bombarding her with questions, “Do you have any comment on those glittering strings that flew overhead earlier? Were they yours? Or are there other forces at work here?”

“A little busy at the moment”, Ladybug gritted her teeth, swinging at a few pigeons who got too close, “You two need to get inside, it's not safe out here.”

“That’s what I've been telling her”, Nino groaned in exasperation, “Why can't you listen to common sense!?”

Alya ignored him, “Ladybug, care to comment on how you are back in action despite the fact that you stated earlier that your interference with the first akuma was a one-time thing?”

Ladybug sighed, “If I answer that question, will you promise to get to safety?”

Alya nodded, adjusting her phone to get a better angle of the interview.

“I had hoped that I wouldn’t be needed again, but when the mayor asks for your help, you can't really refuse”, she took another swing at the birds, driving them farther back, “I won't turn my back on this city.”

“And what about your relationship with Chat Noir? Care to comment on that as well?”

“No, I would not, I already answered your question, now get inside. I’ll cover you.”

Alya looked like she was about to protest, but Nino grabbed her arm and dragged her to cover, Trixx and Wayzz followed closely. 

The second they were out of sight Ladybug took off, giving the pigeons no choice but to follow. It took her two swings to get high enough to see Chat, who was also closing fast on the Arc de Triomphe. 

“AH HA! LOOKS LIKE YOU’VE LEFT YOURSELF OUT IN THE OPEN, NOWHERE TO RUN NOW!”

Mr. Pigeon was right, aside from the landmark, there was very little cover to be found in their surroundings. If her plan didn't work, they were going to have to fight for their lives.

The two reached the great arch at about the same time, both sliding low as they entered it. The birds, who had been following very closely, stopped suddenly. Unable to move. 

All around them the glittering strands of netting caught every bird that flew into it, entangling their wings and immobilizing them. The thin net did very little to catch Mr. Ramier though, it broke as he hit it, sending him flying free of his minions that remained trapped within the mesh. 

Mr. Pigeon hit the ground hard. Chat grabbed the man and pulled his whistle from around his neck. He held it out to Ladybug.

“Yeah”, Chat said, wrinkling his nose, “The akuma is definitely in that thing. It’s got some majorly bad vibes.”

Taking the whistle, Ladybug dropped it to the ground and crushed it under her heal. The shards blackened as the dark magic seeped out, once again taking the shape of a butterfly.

Swinging her yo-yo in a graceful arc, Ladybug caught the akuma midair. She didn't bother to release it, opting instead to keep it trapped within the yo-yo while she purified it.

The magic was the same as last time, though she was able to avoid the unpleasant scream this time around. Siphoning off the power she purified it until there was nothing left but raw, unaltered magic. Making her will unbreakable, she gave it an intent, Undo what has been done. 

The magic obeyed, and she released it, a healing light began to race through the city. The pigeons following close behind.

As the magic left her, a fatigue rushed in. The only thing that kept her from collapsing was Chat, who had placed himself in front of her, holding her steady. She squeezed his arm in thanks.

“That. Was. _AMAZING!”_

The duo looked up to see Alya and Nino standing about 50 yards away. Alya still had her phone out, filming everything.

Ladybug and Chat Noir groaned. Turning their attention to Mr. Ramier, they helped him to his feet.

“I can't believe I got possessed over pigeons”, Mr. Ramier mumbled apologetically, “They are noble creatures, but to become an akuma over a feud with the park keepers is a little embarrassing. Thank you for helping me. I apologize if I caused you any trouble.”

The duo was quick to assure him that it wasn’t his fault, and they asked if he’d want help getting home. The man politely declined, scurrying off before they could talk to him more.

Ladybug turned to Chat offering up her fist, he tapped it with his own. The pair laughed. It was at that moment that Alya and Nino finally reached them. 

“Hello, Ladybug. Chat Noir. I'm Alya Cesaire, this is Nino, would you mind if I asked you both a few questions?”

The heroes exchanged a look. Chat shrugged, “Sure, I have nowhere to be.”

“Okay then, Alya”, Ladybug turned to the witch, “Ask away.”

“Great. Thank you. First question: is this going to become a regular thing?”

“As I told you before Alya, I hope there are no more akuma incidents, and I didn't plan on there to be another. I came to help because I was asked to, same for Chat here.”

“Okay, that leads into our next question”, Alya continued, smiling brightly, “What is the nature of your relationship?” she gestured between the two heroes.

Ladybug sighed and rolled her eyes, Chat let out a bark of laughter.

“What's so funny Chat Noir?”, Alya’s eyes narrowed. She looked ready to grill him.

“Oh, sorry”, Chat coughed, recovering himself a little, “It's just I've heard a number of questions along those lines these last few day, but it still gets me. Up until the first akuma incident, Ladybug and I had never met each other. As a matter of fact, I don’t even know her real name.”

“So this is only the second time you’ve met? How is it that you work so well together?”

“Life or death situations work wonders on your teamwork skills.”

Ladybug laughed at that, “I’ll say.”

“Okay, okay, next question—”

A siren chirped behind them, the sound of people began to reach their ears.

“Looks like we’ll have to call this interview short”, Ladybug said. Smiling, she turned to Chat, offering her hand, “It was good working with you again. Let’s try not to make a habit of it.”

Chat shook her hand firmly before lifting her knuckles and pressing them to his lips. He winked, “Until we meet again, My Lady.”

Ladybug rolled her eyes, “I think I liked “Spots” better.”

Chat Noir chuckled, “Well then. Until next time, _Spots._”

The two heroes took off in opposite directions, leaving behind a growing crowd of people and one very excited witch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope to get the next chapter up by Tuesday/Wednesday. (it was gonna be Monday, but that's DnD night, oops)
> 
> as always, comments, questions or advice will always brighten my day.
> 
> thanks for reading!


	7. Mime

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know its late, but I had homework :/
> 
> this chapter is quite a bit bloodier than the previous ones. guess it was time to earn the tag for 'graphic depictions of violence". we also get a lot more of Adriens POV this time around.
> 
> another thing to note. there is a difference between a person's spirit and soul in this world. (spirit is kinda the name given to a person's inner magic.)
> 
> enjoy!

Following what had happened with the last akuma, Alya had become a little obsessed. After her interview with Ladybug and Chat Noir had gone viral she purchased a domain, dubbing it “The Ladyblog”. The blog had become somewhat popular overnight, and Alya was now able to show off her journalistic prowess to a much wider audience. The young witch was already stressing about how to keep traffic on the blog up, since the absence of akumas the past four days had left the blog with a lack of content.

“I mean, there's only so many relevant people to interview”, Alya complained, stroking Trixx’s fur, “and I've interviewed them all, unless we can somehow find out who Stoneheart was.”

Marinette remained quiet. She and Alya were relaxing on her balcony after school, enjoying the last of the nice weather, before it was inevitably swallowed up by the cold of winter. Both Marinette and Tikki hated the cold, so they'd long since made a habit of lounging in the sun whenever they could, especially in the fall. 

Alya was still bemoaning the lack of new content, when the cold burst of dark magic interrupted her.

“YES!”, the redhead cried, jumping from her chair, “Finally a chance to get some new footage for the Ladyblog! Come on, Trixx”, the young witch shot down through the trap door and out of the room below before Marinette could do anything.

“Alya! Be careful! Don’t do anything—“, Marinette stopped when it became evident that Alya couldn’t hear her. Looking to Tikki she said, “Should I even bother waiting for the mayor to call for help? Or should I just go already?”

“You can transform if you want to”, Tikki chirped, “No harm in being prepared, but I’d wait for the mayor to request your assistance before you engage the akuma. Ladybug is still new to the public eye, we don’t want to give them a reason to crucify you.”

Marinette nodded, pulling up her transformation and saying goodbye Tikki as she swung away. Heading in the direction of the sounds of chaos.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It didn't take her long to find the akuma, he was in the process of defacing a bus. He appeared to be in some kind of mime costume, and seemed to be holding some kind of weapon, though Ladybug couldn’t see what it was.

Around the mime, a formation of officers began to form. A majority of them wore strange, cloaked uniforms. Armed not with tasers but with staffs. If the familiars weren’t a dead giveaway that these people were mages, the cloaks with the words “Magical Emergency Response Unit” were a pretty big hint.

Ladybug remained on the roof, watching closely, maybe she wouldn’t be needed.

One of the mages stamped his staff on the ground, a shockwave blasted towards the akuma, who raised an arm, as if brandishing a shield. The shockwave didn't move the mime in the slightest. 

Another mage drew a sigil in the air, dozens of tiny lights sparking to life around her. At the command word the lights shot towards the mime, moving around whatever shielded him. Colliding with his face, the lights blinded the demonic street performer. As soon as the akuma was distracted a familiar moved in. The creature, which looked like a large hound of some kind, lunged viciously towards the mime’s face.

The akuma, somehow, was able to sidestep the attack. Moving away from the dog the mime grasped something invisible. The hound turned to attack again, but couldn’t move fast enough. Quick as an asp, the akuma lunged forward, as if holding a saber. The dog balked, before letting out a keening yelp as Mime pulled up, blood coated the invisible blade as it ripped into the familiar’s side, clean trough the armored vest the creature wore.

A scream rang out as the witch who had blinded mime collapsed. Before Mime could take another swing at the dog, a hawk dove from the sky, slashing at his hands. The akuma turned his attention to the hawk, who landed on the shoulder of a man standing on the opposite side of the circle, Ladybug recognized him as the unpleasant cop from the Stoneheart incident.

Before any of the MERA officers could react, Mime grabbed for something out of the air once again, and ear-shattering gunfire rang out. All officers ducked for cover, the circle of mages fell apart as they tried to protect themselves. As soon as the mages were distracted, the akuma mimed throwing something onto the ground, and smoke erupted at his feet, in an instant he was gone.

Recovering from her shock, Ladybug vaulted off the roof and ran towards the injured familiar. The hound was still alive, barely. Kneeling, Ladybug called up as much healing magic as she was able to on such short notice, and stitched back the vital organs and arteries. After a few moments the dog was stabilized, and Ladybug moved on to the next injured being she could find.

Eyes tearing up as she tried to stare through the smoke, her gaze fell upon a figure lying prone on the street. Rushing forward and falling to her knees, she sent another burst of healing magic through the body. The bullet wounds in the witch’s side and leg closed, the bleeding trickled to a stop. Ladybug moved on.

The third body was in worse condition. a wet gasping sound alerted Ladybug to the man laying nearby. A pool of blood had begun to surround him. A bullet had caught him in the neck, another had pierced his shoulder. A white cat covered in his blood stood by his head, guarding him. 

The cat hissed as she got closer. Ladybug didn't stop, looking at the familiar she commanded, “Yield”, before kneeling beside the man. The cat lowered its head, not resisting any further. With a hand placed over the bullet hole on his neck, she began to heal once more. This healing took longer this time, as he’d lost a significant amount of blood, and there was a bullet lodged in his chest that she hadn’t seen before.

The fourth person waved her off, pointing in the direction of another wounded mage and their familiar, both of whom were bleeding pretty badly. 

As she dropped her magic after healing the familiar, someone called in a panicked voice, “I need a Healer over here!”

Without hesitation she ran, making it to the man who she had recognized earlier. He laid perfectly still, his eyes staring at nothing, another wizard gripped his hand, shaking. 

“I'm awful at healing magic”, the wizard’s voice wavered, “I can't—”

Ladybug was already kneeling. Placing a hand on the man’s chest she sent out a pulse of magic. His heart wasn’t beating. Biting down on the emotions that bubbled up, she pushed her magic deeper, into his being. His body may have stopped but his soul? His spirit? Those were still there, they hadn’t had time to leave. Wrapping her own spirit around his, she anchored his soul to his body once more. Her magic pulsed through the once dead corpse. First, she repaired the damage done by the bullets, then she revived every cell. Return, she commanded as she breathed life into his body.

With a loud clap of magic, Ladybug recoiled from the body. Standing unsteadily, she watched as the intense glow that had gathered around her began to fade. She held her breath, watching the man she’d just healed. He gasped, his eyes becoming seeing once more. That was all she needed, turning away, she made her way to the next victim.

Another mage laid in a pool of blood, his cloak was soaked in it, eyes staring at nothing. Staggering towards him, Ladybug fell to her knees, placing her hand on his chest she felt the resounding silence. Heart in her throat, she pushed her magic deeper, trying to find his soul, any indication that he wasn’t quite yet gone. 

She found wisps of spirit. 

Tangling her own magic with the wisps she pulled and pulled, she anchored enough his life force to begin healing the physical damage. 

She still needed his soul. She sent her magic farther out, searching for it. Her magic burrowed, venturing deeper than should have been possible. As she ventured farther she felt herself hit a barrier. Gritting her teeth, she pushed, she could see his soul, it was just out of reach. 

The barrier pushed back, it felt wrong to fight against it, the lines between life and death weren’t supposed to blur like this. Her magic touched the soul. the realization of what she was doing hit her and her magic recoiled. She snapped back to reality, her body remained frozen in place as the soul slipped from between her fingers, the lingering spirit dissipating.

_“NO!”_, she cried, “I had it! NO!”

Gripping the man’s collar, she stared at his face, even as tears blinded her. He was young, not even thirty. A sob ripped through her body.

A hand gripped her shoulder, she shook it off. It pulled at her arm. She tried to fight it, she couldn’t leave this man alone, he had already died alone, she couldn’t abandon him. She didn't even know his name.

“C’mon, Spots”, a gentle voice pulled her out of her despair. She stopped fighting as arms gathered her up, “We need to get going.”

With a final tug, Chat Noir got his partner to release the dead wizard’s cloak. She let herself be carried as he vaulted them away.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

She was numb and silent as Chat carried her over the rooftops. 

Chat’s heart ached for his partner. He had waited for the mayor’s plea before transforming. He shouldn’t have waited. The Mime was a terrifying adversary, and anyone who tried to oppose him was left bleeding in the street. Luckily, he didn't seem to be actively hunting people. The akuma seemed far more content to just cause massive property damage, only really attacking when someone tried to stop him.

Chat had arrived on the seen just in time to see Ladybug heal the cop he recognized from the Stoneheart Incident. She’d still been glowing with power when she stumbled to the next body. But even she couldn’t reverse death.

He sat them on a rooftop, behind a chimney, where they'd be safe from prying eyes. Chat looked over his partner. Her hood had fallen and she was covered in blood, he could tell by the scent that it wasn’t her own, but the sight still sent his stomach into a gymnastics routine. 

“It was _right there”_, Ladybug finally spoke, her voice watery, “I almost had it. I was passed the _fucking barrier._ I could have done it”, She looked to Chat, tears spilling down her cheeks, “Why didn't I?”

Chat didn't have an answer, not really. He cupped her face with his hand and thumbed away her tears, “Death isn’t something that can be reversed. And even if you could have, it's not something that should be messed with. The natural order should always remain untouched.”

His words didn't really have an impact, she knew just as well as he did that the natural order was not something to mess with, but that didn't stop her from feeling absolutely horrible.

He pulled her close and hugged her tight as her breathing turned ragged again. She hugged him back just as tightly as sobs wracked her body. 

They stayed like that for a few minutes, until a loud crashing sound reached their ears. Ladybug was the first to pull back from the embrace. Looking into the distance, she shakily got to her feet and readjusted her hood. Chat stood as well, keeping an arm out, ready to grab her should she stumble.

“We need to stop him before anyone else gets hurt”, Ladybug said, the strength returning to her voice.

“I agree with you there, My Lady”, Chat said, “But I'm not sure you’re ready to fight quite yet. You’ve been using some pretty heavy magic and I don’t think it’d be the best idea for you to run off to fight. Maybe you should sit this one out and I’ll come get you when it's time to purify the akuma.”

“Bullshit, Chat. I'm not leaving you to fight that thing alone. It summons invisible weapons, I've seen what it can do. We need to work together on this.”

It was hard for Chat to argue with her, in fact he agreed, he probably wouldn’t be able to do it alone. But throwing her into a fight after what she’d just been through seemed cruel.

“Fine”, he conceded, “but we do recon before. Get as much information as we can before we move in.”

Ladybug hummed in agreement, “I’d like to see what else he’s capable of before we attack. If he can pull guns out of thin air....” she trailed off, losing herself to memory.

Chat nudged his partner, “We stick to the rooftops and stay close, okay?”

She nodded, and the two took off towards the sounds of chaos. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It didn't take them long to find the akuma. He was in the process of dismantling a building. Or at least it looked like he was. The duo crouched on the edge of a roof and observed him.

Mime walked around the structure. Miming as if he were placing small packages around the outside. After a few moments he walked away, taking cover behind a neighboring office building, and mimed as if he were pushing down on an air-pump. A jaw rattling _BOOM_ shook the earth and the building, which was thankfully empty, imploded.

“Okay, so he’s a mime, but everything he does is real”, Chat said, “I gotta say that’s a pretty cool super power. Better than controlling pigeons at least.”

Ladybug hummed in acknowledgement and continued to scrutinize Mime as he moved on to an abandoned bus.

The black-clad hero watched his partner, who was solely focused on the akuma. An invisible weight seemed to press on her. Chat wanted so desperately to ease her pain, but he knew it wasn’t the right time for jokes and he didn't know her well enough to really _talk_ to her about what had just happened. At least he knew she had a familiar she could talk to, hopefully she’d be able to find some solace in that. 

But recovery was a problem for another time, Chat reminded himself, right now they needed to focus on taking down Mime.

“He seems to have a vendetta for anything that has an image of a mime”, Ladybug observed, “Or at the very least he really hates the ads for that mime play.”

Right, Chat had forgotten about that play. Mylene’s father was supposed to be the lead actor for it, she’d been very excited about it for the last week or so.

“Okay, good to know”, Chat said, “What does that mean for us, though?”

“It means that we really need to keep him away from the theater district”, Ladybug said grimly, “That play is opening tonight, I don’t want to find out what happens if he gets there.”

Chat’s stomach churned at the thought. Hopefully the akuma would stick to defacing posters and buildings, those were much easier to fix than people.

“How far are we from the theater district”, Chat asked, “The whole city looks different from the rooftops, I'm not sure where we are.”

Ladybug took a moment, then flicked a wrist out in front of her. A miniature visage of the city appeared before them. She pointed to the map, “We are here”, she said, gesturing to a small red dot, “and the theater district is... oh, shit.” 

A section of the map lit up green and Chat’s heart sank, it was two blocks north of where they stood.

“Any idea what theater the play will be showing at?”

“No idea”, Ladybug said as she stood from where they were crouched, “but we should probably— _shit_.”

The sound of a motorcycle revving echoed through the empty street. Chat’s eyes found the mime, who was currently riding an invisible scooter. He was headed north.

“Well, that doesn’t seem fair.”

“Okay, step one, stop Mime form reaching the theater district. Step two, figure out the rest of the plan”, Ladybug said as she took off after the demonic street performer. Chat followed closely.

Ladybug was faster than he was, she reached the scooter in seconds, swinging in from the side, she intercepted him, kicking him off the scooter and sending him flying into the side of a building.

Mime recovered before Chat could reach them. Bouncing to his feet he drew an invisible gun, firing at Ladybug. Before Chat could panic, Ladybug spun her yo-yo, forming a shield in front of her. The bullets ricocheted off.

Chat reached the akuma as he fired the last bullet, catching him by surprise as his staff swung out of nowhere. Mime sidestepped in the nick of time, the staff hit the street with a hollow _CLANG._

Before Chat could make another attack the wind was knocked out of him as an invisible bat collided with his ribs, sending him flying. Fortunately, he had a fairly soft landing, unfortunately the landing was soft because he landed on Ladybug.

The two heroes tumbled down the street as Mime made his escape on another invisible moped.

In the time it took the duo to recover, Mime had already disappeared around the corner. Ladybug barely waited for Chat to get to his feet before swinging away in pursuit. 

Looking around, Chat’s eyes fell on a poster for the play lying on the pavement. The address of the theater in bold near the bottom. He knew exactly how to get there, it wasn’t far. Chat unclipped his staff from his belt and vaulted off towards the theater.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The street in front of the theater was mercifully empty, but running inside revealed that there were a number of people within, some were here for the play, others were hiding out from the akuma. Chat caught the arm of one of the security guards.

“You need to evacuate the building, as soon as possible.”

The guard looked at him like he was crazy, “There's an akuma outside, besides, we still have a show to put on.”

“You don’t understand”, Chat tried to explain, “The akuma has a grudge against this play specifically, and he was headed this way last I saw, Ladybug is trying to slow him down but we shouldn’t take any chances.”

The guard nodded, turning his head to speak into the radio at his shoulder, “Hey, Paul, we got Chat Noir here claiming that the akuma is targeting this theater, what's our move here?”

Chat couldn’t understand the garbled speech that came from the radio, but the guard nodded, turning to Chat he spoke, “We’ll have it handled, there's a network of tunnels beneath some of the older theaters that we can move the people into those, probably better that turning them out onto the streets with a demon running lose.”

Chat nodded, grateful that they wouldn’t have to worry about civilians when facing down Mime, “Thank you”, he said as he made his way back outside.

Vaulting onto the roof of the theater Chat waited, listening. His gut twisted in guilt as he thought of the fact that he’d left Ladybug to face the akuma alone, but he knew he’d made the right call. Besides, Ladybug was more than capable of handling herself.

The sound of a moped caught his attention. Crouching down, Chat waited. The akuma rounded the corner a block away, only to be sideswiped by Ladybug._ Holy shit, she’s fast,_ Chat thought as the girl landed in front of Mime. 

The akuma got to his feet, brandishing some kind of invisible weapon, he swung at the spotted heroine. Ladybug dodged easily, swinging her yo-yo so it wrapped around his arm. With a great heave she sent him flying down the street towards Chat, who took it as his chance and jumped into the fight.

Catching Mime off guard, Chat caught him with a glancing blow to the side of the head, it wasn’t much, but enough to send him stumbling.

Ladybug landed beside him.

“I warned the theater staff, they should be handling the people inside”, Chat reported. 

“Good, the last thing we need is to worry about civilians getting hurt. Especially when we know this akuma can turn deadly.”

“So, what's the plan?”, Chat asked, readying his staff.

Mime had recovered. Turning to face them he pulled out another invisible weapon. A bat or sword by the looks of it.

“Keep fighting and hope we get lucky?”, Ladybug said, looking tired.

“How about I keep him busy, and you conjure a little something that might help. A lucky charm of sorts?”

Ladybug nodded, looking grateful to have someone else calling the shots for once.

Chat stepped forward to engage the akuma, who thrust his hand forward as though fighting with a fencing sabre. 

His many years of fencing training kept him alive as Chat dodged the first jab easily. It was hard to fight when you couldn’t see the weapon, but it was easy enough to interpret Mime’s body position and react accordingly. This time when Mime attacked, Chat parried easily and thrust back, hitting him square in the chest with his staff, sending him stumbling back again.

Mime silently growled and dropped his sword before grabbing for another weapon. This time when he swung the force of the impact almost sent the staff clattering out of Chat’s hand. He had replaced his sabre with a much heavier sword.

Chat adjusted his fighting style, holding his staff with two hands instead of one. and the two clashed again. Mime seemed to notice after Chat parried for a third time that he was outmatched in melee combat. His eyes fell to Ladybug, who was summoning an object. With a great shove, he pushed Chat aside and lunged for Ladybug.

Chat, who was focused entirely on protecting Ladybug, leapt to parry the strike away from his partner, leaving himself defenseless in the process. Before he could react, Mime released the sword in his hands and grabbed for something else, sending it upward into Chat’s body.

Heat flared through his body as something stabbed through him. A gargled noise came from his throat in place of a gasp of pain. 

Ladybug screamed his name.

Summoning as much strength as possible, Chat swiped at Mime’s face with his claws. Gouging deep into the akuma’s cheek he sent the mime’s hat flying. 

Mime stumbled back in surprise, reaching for his face, ripping Chat open further as he pulled back and up. Chat collapsed, the akuma looked down at him, brandishing a dagger, the blood that coated it made the jagged blade visible. 

Before Mime could strike again, Ladybug was on him. Swinging her yo-yo viscously, she sent him flying. Not giving him a chance to recover, before she was on him again.

The spotted heroine moved so fast that Chat wasn’t able to keep up. Pressing a hand to the stab wound just below his ribs he tried to breathe through the pain, which only seemed to make it worse as each breath rattled painfully.

His vision was fuzzy around the edges and blood filled his mouth with each breath. He tried to move but his feet and hands didn't respond. When had he started shivering? When had he laid down on his side? He caught sight of a flash of red but lost sight of it just as quickly.

Sooner or later the sounds of fighting stopped. How long had they been in combat? He could remember? He could barely keep his eyes open.

_“CHAT!”_

The sound of his name pulled him from his stupor. He opened his eyes to see a pair of black and red boots in front of him. Ladybug knelt beside him, tears in her eyes.

“Oh, no, not you too”, he heard an angelic voice say as soothing magic coated his senses. The relief of pain happened so faster that it sent a shock through him. Gasping, his body seized and his eyes flew open to meet Ladybug’s tearful stare. 

The moment he recovered enough to sit up he looked her over, she looked as bad as he felt, blood ran down the side of her face, but the hood obscured the wound. Her left shoulder hung at a bad angle, and he was sure there were more injuries that he couldn’t see.

A hand cupped his cheek, “Glad you're not dead”, his partner breathed, smiling in relief.

“Likewise”, Chat said as he looked around, taking in the utter destruction of the street. Cars were turned over, windows and pillars were broken, a fire hydrant sprayed water high into the air. Half of the theater front was caved in. Damn.

“Where was the akuma?” he asked, “Has it been purified?”

Ladybug winced, “I can't find it”, she helped him to his feet, “even after I subdued him I can't find the ob—“, she stopped short, her eyes falling on the hat Chat had knocked away, “—ject.”

“The hat?”

“Maybe...”, Ladybug said as she picked up the hat, “but if the akuma is who I think it is, then the object is probably—HA!”, she said triumphantly as she pulled a small square of paper from the hat. The paper radiated dark energy.

Ladybug ripped the paper in half, releasing the black butterfly. Catching it in her yo-yo she began the purification spell.

Chat doubted he would ever get tired of seeing her perform this spell. Her whole form seemed to emanate magic, and her eyes glowed and she siphoned off the dark magic and purified it. After a few moments, the yo-yo opened and released a pure white butterfly. Ladybug then changed the direction of the spell, the power so immense that her feet only barely brushed the ground. As soon as the power seemed to reach its peak, she released it, sending it out to heal.

The wave of healing magic washed over him, but it didn't heal every scratch on him as it had with Mr. Pigeon. Instead, it payed little attention to him as it moved on to fix the rest of the city.

Chat was about to ask Ladybug why the magic was acting differently when the witch swayed dangerously on her feet. Catching her before she could fall, Chat lifted her into his arms and vaulted onto the rooftops, away from the approaching press.

~~~~~~~~~~~

They sat on a high rooftop, within an alcove beneath a gargoyle. Neither seemed to have the energy to speak.

Chat used his magic to clean the blood off of them, Ladybug sat numbly as he ran his magic through her hair and along her clothes. She had overextended herself and was beginning to come off the magic high, which meant she was in for one heck of a hangover for the next 10 hours.

“Will you be okay to get home?”, Chat asked as he finished cleaning them off.

“Yeah”, Ladybug hummed, “I'm gonna collapse for the rest of the day, though. I need a nap.”

The sun had just begun to touch the horizon, still easily visible from where they sat, but they both were bone tired and in pain. It felt much later than it was.

“How is your wound?”, Ladybug asked as she touched his ribs, sending a wave of healing magic through him before he could protest, he felt completely healed.

“You should be healing yourself, I'm fine, you're the one who is gonna have to swing home on a fucked up shoulder.”

Ladybug shook her head, waving him off, “My magic will heal me in my sleep, a good nap will fix me up just fine. You on the other hand, can't heal for shit.”

“I’m too tired to argue with you on that”, Chat admitted, “The last thing I tried to heal was a papercut, my nose started bleeding before I could make any progress.”

Ladybug laughed weekly at that, holding her side as if in pain.

Chat leaned towards her in concern, “Are you sure you can swing home? No offense but you look like shit.”

“Says the guy who was bleeding out in the street earlier”, Ladybug retorted.

The two fell silent at the memory. Chat wanted to say something, but “thank you” didn't seem like a strong enough way to show his gratitude, and “I'm sorry” didn't seem sufficient either.

Before he could open his mouth to say anything, Ladybug spoke.

“Look, we need to talk. About a lot of things. If this is going to become a regular thing, we are going to need to be on the same page, but we are both too tired to do anything right now. Can we meet? Tomorrow? Midnight?”

Chat nodded, relieved that she had said what he had been thinking, “I think I can fit that into my schedule.”

“Okay, then”, Ladybug said as she slowly got to her feet, “I need to get some sleep. See you tomorrow night. This building?”

“This building works perfectly”, Chat waved as his partner swung off into the city below. He watched her as long as he could before turning and vaulting in the direction of his own home.

A few vaults over the city and he had already reached the manor. Leaping through the window Adrien had left open, he landed in his room. Dropping his transformation without a second thought, he walked into the bathroom, intent on scrubbing away all the bad memories of the day.

Once out of the shower, he put on an old pair of shorts and flopped down on the bed, not even bothering to pull the blankets over him as he fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always please feel free to comment with any advice or questions. (I love hearing from y'all)
> 
> I have a couple of exams this week, so I probably won't update until this weekend at the earliest.
> 
> ill try to get the next chapter up within a week. 
> 
> thanks for reading! <3


	8. A Much Needed Distraction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah its late again. my week has been a hectic one and I have three exams coming up in the next few days so ive been short on time.
> 
> I didn't have a lot of time to do any in depth editing so I apologize in advance for any mistakes, feel free to let me know if there are any glaring mistakes.
> 
> hope you enjoy, this is a very relaxed chapter, mostly happy things.

Adrien woke up the next morning to a notification on his phone from Natalie:  
_Photoshoot venue damaged in akuma attack. Your schedule has been cleared for the weekend. _

Laying his phone on the nightstand he rolled back over, his body still ached from yesterday. Kicking his legs in confusion, he realized that someone had pulled the covers over him as he’d slept. He was about to question who had done that when the twitch of a black tail caught his eye, Plagg laid beside his head on the pillow. He must have snuck in some time last night.

The cat met his stare, “So, a rare weekend off. What are you going to do with it?”

“Sleep”, Adrien answered, burying his face in the pillow, “I’ll see if anyone wants to do something this afternoon.”

Plagg stood, readjusting himself so he could lay in the crook of Adrien’s neck.

“Sleep”, the cat mused curling further into Adrien’s warmth, “now that’s an activity I can get behind.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Marinette slept like the dead. Tikki didn't even bother trying to rouse her until it was almost noon.

“Marinette if you sleep much longer, you'll throw off your whole sleep schedule.”

The familiar was being far more gentle in waking her witch than usual, after all, Marinette had had a rough day yesterday, she deserved to be coddled a bit. 

Marinette mumbled something unintelligible and buried her face into her pillow. Sighing, Tikki flew downstairs into the bakery, where Sabine was ringing up a customer, the lunch rush was in full swing.

“Is she still not getting up?”

Tikki shook her head.

“Here, take these up to her, that should help”, Sabine said as she retrieved a small bag and a cup of coffee and handed them to Tikki, scratching the familiar behind her ears before turning to serve the next customer.

Grabbing the bag in her mouth and the coffee in her paws Tikki fluttered back up to her witch’s room. The room was as quiet as she had left it.

Setting the food on the bedside table, Tikki flew upwards, until she was hovering a good meter above Marinette's sleeping form. 

Tucking her wings to her back, the creature plummeted downwards, aiming for the sleepy girl below.

_“Oooff!”_

Bullseye.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Adrien stirred an hour or so before noon. Careful not to disturb plagg, he got out of bed and made is way to the kitchen.

The staff worked reduced hours on weekends, so Adrien was left to fend for himself for breakfast. He wasn’t the best cook, but he knew how to make eggs and toast at the very least.

Dumping his breakfast on to a plate, he grabbed the half wheel of camembert in the pantry and made his way back to his room. Plagg stirred as the door opened.

“Is that camembert is smell?”

Adrien tossed the foil wrapped wheel towards the cat in answer.

Plagg purred loudly as he devoured the rancid smelling cheese. Adrien tried not to let the smell get to him as he dug into his own food.

As Adrien ate his breakfast he sent a text to Nino.

_Got a free weekend for the first time in a long time, you free to hang?_

After a few minutes Nino replied, _Hell yeah dude, it's about time your old man let you have some free time. I’ll be free all day tomorrow. Alya and I are out doing couple things rn so I can't hang today, but Mari should be free._

Adrien sighed as he read Nino’s reply, he remembered Alya mentioning that they had plans this weekend, but it was a bummer that it would last the whole day. At least Marinette would be free today.

Finishing his breakfast, Adrien shot a text to Marinette, asking if she was free, and began to get ready for the day. 

It didn't take him long to brush his teeth and change into a decent pair of jeans, he tried not to stare for too long at the new silvery scar that faintly adorned his chest. It was barely noticeable but was fairly visible if the light hit it at the right angle. Hopefully it wouldn’t be too noticeable in any of his shoots, usually he was fully clothed, so he didn't really need to worry, but it would be a little hard to explain to anyone who saw him changing.

He hadn’t received an answer from Marinette by the time he had finished getting ready. Looking at his phone, Adrien hummed, “I supposed I could call her...”.

“The bakery isn’t that far of a walk”, Plagg picked up where Adrien trailed off, “and even if pigtails isn’t available, you can always get a few pastries to go.”

Adrien could argue with the cat’s logic as he grabbed his jacket and made his way to the door. Stopping just before turning the doorknob, he stopped and looked at his familiar, feeling bad for leaving him, “What will you do for the day?”

“Eh, probably sleep a little more. Then maybe go find a good roof to lounge on. I'm not good at planning out my days. Have fun, kid.”

Adrien smiled and left the cat laying in the sun. As he made his way out of the mansion, he texted Natalie, letting her know where he was headed. The walk was short and the weather was beautiful, a light breeze tickled his cheeks and the sun was shining, Adrien almost felt sorry that he would have to go inside. 

The young wizard entered the bakery, smiling as the smell of bread and sweets wafted over him. There were a healthy number of people sitting at the tables, but the line at the counter consisted of one person. Sabine saw him the moment she finished serving the customer, her face lit up, “Adrien! It's so good to see you, it's not often you have your weekends free.”

The fact that she knew that about him warmed Adrien to his core. “Yeah”, he said, “the venue had to cancel last minute so I have the whole weekend to myself. I was wondering if Marinette was free since Alya and Nino are out today.”

Sabine grinned, “Oh she’s free for sure, Tikki has been trying to wake her up for the past hour or so, but she hasn’t been down yet. Why don’t you go on up and see what’s keeping her.”

Adrien nodded, making his way passed the counter towards the stairs as he had done many times before. Sabine pushed a small plate of pastries into his hands before he had even made it to the first step.

“You're too skinny”, the woman grumbled as she hurried back into the kitchen before Adrien could protest.

Smiling to himself, Adrien made his way up the stairs, popping a croissant into his mouth as he climbed. The kitchen was empty when he entered, though he heard noise coming from the living room. Rounding the corner, Adrien saw Tikki’s cherry red form sitting on the back of the couch.

As if sensing him, the familiar turned. Once she realized who he was, she fluttered over, landing herself in his arms and grabbing a croissant from his plate.

_She’s in a bit of a funk. Maybe you can help? _ Tikki’s sweet voice said in his head.

Looking over the top of the couch, Adrien could see the TV on, it was showing coverage of yesterday’s akuma attack. The face of a young man flashed every once in a while, interrupting the footage of crying families, damaged buildings, and police interviews.

Adrien’s heart clenched at the image of the man’s face. He recognized him as the mage Ladybug had been unable to revive. He had been the only casualty of the attack, thankfully, but Adrien couldn’t help but feel guilty, he knew Ladybug would be beating herself up about it as well.

Moving closer to the couch revealed a lump of blankets, Marinette was buried beneath, eyes fixed on the television. She looked lost, and impossibly sad. The girl still hadn’t seemed to notice him.

Adrien looked at Tikki, hoping for an explanation.

_The news of the akuma attack has her down, she feels bad that she couldn’t have helped. That combined with the fact that Mr. Haprele’s name was released as the akuma victim has gotten to her. Tikki looked at her witch forlornly. She needs a distraction, something to lift her spirits a bit._

_I can do distractions,_ Adrien thought as he placed Tikki on the back of the couch and set the plate on the table behind him.

Making his footsteps loud enough for Marinette to hear, he walked towards the couch, yawning loudly.

“Oh my, I am so tired, and this couch looks so comfortable”, he said as he tumbled over the back of the couch, Marinette squeaked as he flopped over her, adjusting himself dramatically he continued, “it's a bit lumpy though, perhaps I should move these blankets.”

Adrien reached towards where Marinette’s side would be, grabbing a hold of the blanket, and tickling her in the process.

The young witch gasped in surprise as giggles overtook her, “Adri— _ADRIEN! Ssstopppit._ I— I can't breathhhe.”

Adrien relented, opting to pull of some of her blankets instead. Marinette turned to glare at him, her face flushed and hair mussed. Adrien snickered at her unamused face. Only to burst into an outright cackle as Tikki landed on Marinette's face, having leapt from her place above them.

Marinette sat up, dumping Tikki onto her lap. “You two just seem to be completely dedicated to making sure I will never know peace.” A smile she’d been trying to hold back cracked her face, “What are you doing here, Adrien? I thought you had a photoshoot this weekend.”

“The venue had to cancel last minute, so I'm free for the whole weekend. And since Alya and Nino are out, I figured you’d be free to do something. When you didn't answer my text I decided to just come over and see fr myself.“

“Oh, sorry, I left my phone in my room”, Marinette said, “I was wondering when you’d finally get a weekend to yourself. What were you planning on doing?”

Adrien paused, “Well, step one was to find out if you were free. And I wasn’t sure I’d get that far, so I didn't plan for much else. Got any suggestions?”

“Oh, I have a few ideas, give me a minute to get dressed, and we can go”, the girl hopped off the couch and raced upstairs, leaving Adrien and Tikki to share the last of the pastries Mrs. Cheng had sent up.

After a few minutes the girl came tumbling down the stairs, dressed in jeans and a pale pink blouse. She grabbed a wallet and a number of other items from her school bag and placed them in the side pockets of a much smaller, much more stylish backpack.

Adrien was about to ask what the backpack was for, when Tikki hopped in, settling down happily. 

Marinette left the bag open enough for Tikki to be able to peek out and swung it gently over her shoulders, “We’re ready when you are”, she said as she turned to Adrien.

“I don’t even know where we are going”, Adrien said as he opened the door for her, “Do I get any hints?”

The young witch grinned, “You'll just have guess”, she said as she led him out the door.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The two wandered the city, Marinette leading the way. They wound their way through the one of the open-air markets, it wouldn’t be open for much longer this year, as the coming winter would make it a rather unpleasant experience. 

As they wandered the two would stop to look at whatever goods caught their eyes. Adrien kept an eye on Marinette as they meandered through the stands. She seemed to be in much better spirits than she’d been this morning, but occasionally she would fall into a melancholy state, her gaze becoming far off as she became lost in thought. Whenever he noticed that, Adrien did his best to pull her back, usually with a pun of some kind.

“We should be almost there”, Marinette said as they passed a vendor selling chocolates, which sent Tikki flying out of her bag.

Marinette caught her familiar, laughing as she stuffed the creature back into the bag, “Tikki, come one! You get plenty of sweets at home. This is why we don’t come her very often.”

Adrien laughed as Tikki turned her big, sad eyes to him. _She might be worse than Plagg,_ he thought as Marinette continued to lead him through the market place. He managed to pull her to a stop long enough to buy some apple cider for the two of them, and sneak a pumpkin donut to Tikki behind Marinette’s back. 

“So, are you ever going to tell me where you're taking me? Or am I going to have to wait and see?”

Marinette gave him a smug smile in answer.

“Guess I’ll have to wait and see.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Marinette was grateful for the distraction. She enjoyed spending time with Adrien, and being out and about was certainly better than moping around the house. But it didn't stop the sporadic waves of sadness. She had been smelling a handmade candle when she overheard a few of the women in the quilt stall next door discussing the akuma attack.

“It’s concerning, knowing that they can turn deadly. The first two were only nuisances. This one did a lot more damage.”

“I know what you mean”, another woman replied, “all the damage caused by the first two was repaired by that girl’s magic, but I guess this one just did too much.”

“Well”, a third said, “she did do an awful lot of healing with those officers, saved most of their lives according to my son. The fact that she could cast magic at all after that is a feat in and of itself.”

“Well, it's still scary”, the first said, “hopefully the city will figure out a better solution soon. One person has already died, how many more will follow before they decide to do something.”

Marinette listened, a knot forming in her stomach. She was so focused on trying to hear that she didn't notice Adrien standing next to her until he nudged her with his elbow.

“Here”, he said, offering her a candle, “I think you'll like this one, though the name is a little disturbing.”

Marinette took the sparkly, sweet smelling candle and looked at the label, which read _Unicorn Farts_ in shiny pink letters.

Marinette cackled, Adrien joined in as he put the candle back and the two continued on through the market.

After the women reminded her about the akuma attack, it kept interrupting Marinette’s thoughts. But each time she found herself wallowing in self-pity, Adrien was there, dragging her out of her negative thoughts with a bad pun. She was so lucky to have a friend like him.

Marinette wasn’t exactly sure where they were going. She knew what they were looking for and that they were in the right area, and she knew it was somewhere nearby, but it wasn’t like she knew an exact location. 

The two rounded a corner and Adrien stopped cold, gaping. Marinette followed his gaze, and caught her breath. They had found it.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Here we are”, Marinette said, sounding relieved.

Adrien could barely hear her, he was so amazed by his surroundings.

They had made their way to the northeast corner of the market. There was a cluster of temporary stalls, larger than the normal vendor tents in the center of the marketplace. The stalls seemed to have been grown out of trees, branches jutting out from the walls were being used to hold shelves, a thin canopy of leaves cast dancing allowed dappled light to dance across everything.

A number of people, dressed in casual working clothes milled around their stalls. Each stand had a different product, each exquisitely made. Adrien took a deep breath, the smells of the market were gone, replace with the faint scent of wildflowers and sunshine. Magic permeated the air, making Adrien’s own magic hum in harmony. All around the stalls, familiars of the stranger variety milled about.

The closest two stalls displayed the products of a sun-tanned woman, a bandana kept her gray, sun-streaked hair out of her face and she wore a denim apron. She turned to them as they approached, smiling.

“Now what can I do for the three of you”, she said as she wiped her hands on her apron. 

Adrien looked around the stall in awe. Strange, intricate forms of stone littered the shelves, all ranging in size. What was this place?

His awe and confusion must have been very apparent because both Marinette and the woman laughed.

“I kinda dragged him here as a surprise, I didn't really give him much of an explanation”, Marinette explained, “I'm at a loss for words as well but at least I had an idea of what to expect.”

The woman smiled, “Well, it's obvious your both very magically inclined, the aura of the caravan can be very overwhelming. Even for those who are accustomed to it. Allow me to introduce myself”, she offered her hand to each of them, shaking firmly, “They call me Hana. And I am one of the Artisans. Welcome to the Caravan of Forgotten Arts.”

“You may call me Marinette, and this is my familiar, Tikki”, Marinette gestured to her familiar, who was sitting on Adrien’s shoulder

“I’m Adrien.”

“Well, it's certainly nice to meet you three. You're more than welcome to look around my stall, and let me know if you see anything you fancy, same goes for all the other stands as well.”

Adrien and Marinette thanked her and began to wander the stalls. As they perused the various goods, Marinette explained exactly where they were.

“The Caravan of Forgotten Arts is what it's called. But it's really just a guild of specialized artisans who are dedicated to preserving magical crafting techniques that use Singing. But since Singing is such an adaptable technique there's a lot of different subsects of it. Hana was most likely a Stone Singer”, Marinette continued to explain, pointing to a number of other stalls, as she spoke, “there are a lot of different types. The Caravan travels around, and the artisans can join as they like, some travel year-round, others only do it for a few months so the lineup is always changing. Right now, it looks like there are Singers dedicated to plants, glass, metal, and—Oh! Textiles!”

Marinette rushed over to a stall that was covered in massive swaths of cloth.

Adrien thought on what she’d said. He was familiar with Singing. It was a spellcasting technique that used feeling and instinct to weave a spell, rather than any actual protocols. It was difficult to learn, but it could be used to imbue objects with magic, which explained the aura surrounding everything. They didn't teach Singing in school, since it was nearly impossible to instruct, but Marinette had been offered an independent study in Singing, since her magic just seemed to operate like that. Adrien had always preferred the more structured approach of spellcasting; his magic didn't do well when allowed wiggle room.

He joined Marinette at the stall. She was talking to the vendor, the two were excitedly discussing the difference between organic and nonorganic materials. And how hard it was to get nylon to behave. Adrien hung back with Tikki, not wanting to disturb the two. 

Eventually, Tikki pulled his attention to the food vendor a few stands down. Making sure Marinette was still occupied, he slipped out of the stall and made his was towards the scent of food. 

By the time he returned, him with a bag of candied berries and Tikki chocolate muffin, Marinette had finished her conversation.

She rolled her eyes at them, “Of course. I turn my back for 10 minutes and the two of you are already stuffing your faces.”

Adrien grinned and held out his bag, offering her a berry. She accepted, and they continued on to the next stall.

“Okay”, Adrien began, “So I understand who these people are, and I get why the magic here makes my eyes water. But what I don’t get is why there are so many familiars. They outnumber the people, vendors and patrons combined. And some of them aren’t completely solid. What's up with that?”

Marinette didn't get a chance to respond, as a voice to their left answered first, “Perhaps I can help you understand.”

The two mages turned to the stall they had been passing. It was well shaded and smelled strongly of medicinal herbs. Vials and bottles of all shapes and sizes adorned the shelves. Strange ghostly creatures also crowded the shelves, watching quietly. A massive tortoise lounged in the sun. A man sat as an ornately painted table, pouring tea. 

“All fae creatures need something to bind them to this plane of existence. For familiars, it is the bond they have with their chosen. The bond between a mage and familiar is so strong that it allows the familiar to remain totally in the physical realm. These fae”, the man gestured to the wispy creatures on the shelves, “are not bound by a familiar bond. Rather they are allowed here by contract of the caravan. They provide guidance and company to us Singers, and we provide them with a partial hold in this world. The contract is an informal one, and it is much older than anyone here, but it is based on a mutual understanding between man and fae.”

“So, they aren’t completely solid because they aren’t able to bind themselves here?”

“That is correct young man. Though some are more solid than others, none of them are completely corporeal.”

A few of the faeries approached them curiously. One fish like creature floated lazily into their space. Before it's flowing whiskers could touch either of them, Tikki let out a strange, keening noise and bared her fangs. The faeries vanished.

Marinette recovered from her shock and apologized. The man chuckled, holding up a hand, “No need to apologize. Looks like you have a protective familiar. That’s good. The fae can be helpful, but they are also notoriously good at causing mischief. And besides, I don’t mind the peace and quiet.”

“I've never seen her do that before”, Marinette said, looking to Tikki for some kind of explanation, which Tikki did not seem to provide. “Thank you for explaining. I had no idea non-familiar faeries could walk the earth outside the documented exceptions.”

“Think of the Caravan as though it were in an everlasting Samhain”, the man elaborated, “or perhaps, consider it transient faerie ring. It's a very similar concept to that.”

“I suppose that makes some sense. Thank you again for the explanation. And I really must apologize for disturbing your afternoon tea, Mr....” Marinette trailed off, realizing that she didn't know the man’s name.

“Fu”, the man supplied, “You may call me Mr. Fu.”

Marinette gave a slight bow, “You may call me Marinette.”

“I’m Adrien.”

Mr. Fu gave him an amused look before turning to one of his shelves, “Before you leave”, he said, pulling out four tiny bottles, he handed two to each of them, “I've been giving these to anyone who stops by to chat. It should help protect your home from the evil that seems to be affecting this city. They're witch bottles. Put one at the front door and the other at the back door of your house, burying is preferable, but not required.”

The two thanked Mr. Fu once again before taking their leave. 

As they exited the stand, Marinette looked at him, as if trying to solve a puzzle, “Why do you do that?”, she asked.

“Do what?”

“Introduce yourself like that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, you—Oh, that makes sense. You don’t know. But why don’t you know? I thought your father hated faeries.”

“What don’t I know?” Adrien was beginning to feel a little annoyed at being left out of the loop.

“You aren’t supposed to give faeries your name. And by that same extension, if you are in a setting where the barrier between the worlds is thin, you shouldn’t give anyone your name, on the off chance they may be fae.”

“I know about the superstition. If a faerie gets your name it has some type of control over you right? But what's the big deal? You gave them your name.”

“No, I said they could _call me_ Marinette. I never said that my name _was_ Marinette. There's a big difference.”

“Oh”, he felt dumb for no knowing these things.

Marinette patted him on the back, “Don’t worry, you didn't give any fae your name. both Hana and Fu were human. But it is something to be aware of, especially since the caravan will be in town for the next few weeks.”

Adrien hummed in though as they made their way out of the marketplace. It was getting late but Marinette insisted that he come back to her house for dinner. 

Her parents were more than happy to have him, and he felt that familiar warmth that he had grown accustomed to when he was around the Dupain-Cheng’s. He had almost forgotten what a family dinner felt like.

After dinner, Adrien said goodbye, but not before Tom walked him down the stairs, and into the kitchen, telling Adrien to take all of the day-old pastries he wanted. There weren’t many to choose from, the bakery often sold out of most of their confections, but he was able to grab a few cheese danishes for plagg. Putting them into a box he bid the family farewell, promising Marinette that he would text her when he made it home safely.

After a short walk, he made it home. Stopping briefly at the front step to drop the witch bottle, which Marinette had assured him was safe, into one of the gaps between the rose bushes and steps. After checking in with Natalie, he did the same to his back step before finally making it to his room, shooting a text to Marinette that he had made it home.

Plagg, who had somehow appeared the moment Adrien sat down, was already munching on the pastries.

“A little stale, but I won't complain too much. How was your date with pigtails?”

Adrien rolled his eyes, “Since when do you not complain. And it wasn’t a date. Marinette is _just_ a friend. Nothing more.”

“Yeah okay. You keep telling yourself that. Even though you look like a kicked kitten every time you say it.”

Adrien ignored him. They'd had this conversation plenty of times before, he knew how it would go down if he kept acknowledging him.

“You may want to take a quick nap”, Plagg said, as if sensing the teasing wouldn’t get him anywhere.

“Why?”

“You have an important meeting at midnight, you had a hard day yesterday, and an eventful day today. A little sleep would do you good.”

Adrien was about to argue when he realized that Plagg was right. He was tired.

“Alright”, he conceded, “will you wake me up in time?”

“You may just want to set an alarm, remember last time you asked me to wake you up?”

Adrien chuckled at the memory. He would have been late to school if Natalie hadn’t come to wake him up, almost discovering Plagg in the process.

“Fair enough I’ll set an alarm”, he said as he laid down and fell asleep.

~~~~~~

The alarm didn't wake him up, Plagg did. The cat was sitting on his face, which made it very hard to sleep. Sitting up he pushed Plagg off his head, glaring at his familiar.

“You told me to wake you up before the witching hour.”

“Yeah and then you told me to set an alarm.”

“Just in case I forgot.”

“What's the point of— never mind. I should get going”, Adrien said as he called up his transformation.

“Not bad. You're getting better at casual magic.”

Adrien smiled. Turning to his window and opening it, he drew his staff and vaulted into the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always I love hearing from you all!
> 
> a quick question to those who care to answer: is t better to have shorter chapters (2.5k words) posted more frequently or longer chapters (5k words) posted less often. I have been writing longer chapters lately and ive been wondering what people prefer to read. please let me know your thoughts :)
> 
> ill try to get the next chapter up next week. but as always, life likes to get in the way.


	9. A Late Night Rendezvous

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a bit shorter chapter this time around. decided to end it naturally instead of powering through. hope you all enjoy!

After saying farewell to Adrien, Marinette returned to her room. She and Tikki needed to discuss a few things before she met with Chat tonight.

For the first since she had woken up, Marinette looked at her phone. She had so many notifications that it was hard to get an exact count, but it was obvious a majority of them were from Alya.

After shooting a quick text to her best friend, explaining her absence, Marinette set down to read what all the fuss was about. It shouldn’t have surprised her that it was about yesterday's akuma attack. It was all over the Ladyblog. Marinette's heart clenched as she came across footage of Chat Noir pulling a crying Ladybug off a corpse. It seemed Alya had managed to get footage of a majority of the police’s encounter with Mime, along with an interview with the parents of the young officer who had been killed.

The parents of Officer Brodeur had been tearful and polite, they claimed that they didn't blame the Mr. Haprele, and they were thankful to Ladybug for trying to heal their son. Marinette's heart broke for them, she scrolled on, unable to finish the interview. 

Tikki sat next to her witch as she cried and scrolled through the blog feed. Her sobs only worsened when she stumbled upon footage of Chat Noir being felled. 

It felt as though she were watching another person in those moments. Chat fell to his knees and Ladybug screamed, going after the akuma with a vengeance, moving so quickly the camera couldn’t even get decent footage of the fight. By the time the dust had cleared, Ladybug was kneeling next to her partner, glowing with a healing light.

The video was a significant one for the Ladyblog, since it was the first to capture footage of her purification spell. A number of people in the comments were trying to figure out the process, while others were arguing over whether or not she a Chat were a couple. Marinette sniffled and scoffed, some people never change. 

She continued to scroll, unhappy to find that Mr. Haprele’s name had been mentioned so many times. Alya had managed to be the only journalist to swing an interview with him, probably due to her friendship with Mylene. The interview had cast him in a very kind light, but it didn't prevent some from calling for his arrest. Now that someone had died, people were beginning to be concerned with seeking justice, which was putting the heat onto the known akuma victims.

Marinette put her phone down and flopped onto her back, too tired to take any more.

“Tikki, what do I do?”

“_You_ don’t need to do anything. You're too young to be dealing with this. You should be worrying about homework, and dates, and stupid things that most teenagers concern themselves with. You shouldn’t feel obligated to throw yourself into danger. You shouldn’t be fighting demons. It's not right. You deserve a childhood.”

Marinette could feel how upset her familiar was. Reaching out, she pulled Tikki to her and stroked the familiar’s fur. 

“I don’t think I get much of a choice at this point. I'm not going to turn my back on this.”

Tikki relaxed across Marinette's stomach, “I know. But that doesn’t mean I'm not allowed to be pissed off about it.”

Marinette was surprised at her familiar’s rage, it wasn’t often that Tikki got truly mad about something. The creature was usually so happy and content that she rarely expressed such negative emotions.

“You don’t need to concern yourself with the politics”, Tikki continued, “Don’t add more to your plate than you already have. You're protecting the people, you don’t need to govern them.”

“But what happens when they start turning on the victims. How can turn my back on them.”

“Marinette, you are meant to deal with the akumas. Let the people handle themselves.”

“Tikki, if I don’t do something, they’ll be calling for the arrest of the victims.”

“No, they won't. And even if they do, public opinion will change soon enough. Don’t concern yourself with the everchanging whims of humans, they are fickle creatures.”

The young witch chuckled at that. It wasn’t often that Tikki referred to people in such a way, but it reminded Marinette how old her companion was.

“How many times have you been a familiar?”, she asked before she could stop herself, “How many other mages have you served?”

Tikki’s eyes softened, “You know familiars are forbidden from sharing certain pieces of information.”

Marinette did know that. Familiars were forbidden from revealing their previous contracts, as well as divulging any information about the after-life or the Faewilds from which they came.

“All I can say”, Tikki continued, “Is that you are my first. And you will be my last.”

Marinette's chest constricted a little as she heard those words. All Fae, even familiars, were unable to lie. Tikki meant what she said, her words were the absolute truth.

The tears returned as Marinette hugged her familiar to her chest. 

“I'm glad that out of everyone on this plane of existence, you chose me.”

Tikki buzzed soothingly, “Fate would have it no other way.” 

Marinette didn't really think to question her familiar’s cryptic answer, she was already drifting off to sleep.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Marinette awoke to Tikki swatting her nose.

“You'll be meeting Chat Noir soon. You should get ready.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chat vaulted over the city. Now that there was no imminent danger, he was able to truly appreciate just how freeing it was to run across the rooftops. Vaulting with the staff hat become almost second nature by now and he rarely stumbled.

Nearing the meeting spot, he allowed himself to slow, he was plenty early, there was no need for him to rush. As he reached a rooftop adjacent to his destination he paused. There was someone already there.

Crouching at the edge of the roof, Chat observed the hooded figure. They were seated on the ledge, feet dangling into the air. 

As if sensing him, the figure turned and removed their hood. The familiar face of his partner smiled at him from across the rooftops. She waved him, seemingly amused by the fact that he was hiding.

In a single leap, Chat cleared the gap between buildings.

“So... how has your day been?”, Chat asked as he settled down beside her on the ledge.

“Not too bad”, Ladybug said, offering him a box of pastries, “Managed not to sit around and mope the day away, at least.”

“That’s good”, Chat said, eyeing the pastry box, it was from the Dupain-Cheng bakery. “How were you able to get these so late?”, He asked as he grabbed a croissant, “They’ve been closed for hours.”

“Grabbed them earlier today, figured some sweets would be nice. And how do you know Tom & Sabine’s hours?”

Chat shrugged, “Best pastries in the city, of course I know their hours.” Hopefully Ladybug wouldn’t read into his answer, he didn't want to give away his identity based on his connection to Marinette.

His partner just smiled, seemingly pleased with his answer. 

“So....”, Chat began, “do you want to kick this off? Or should I?”

“I’ll start”, Ladybug took a deep breath, “I want to preface this all by saying that I am grateful for what you have done, and I'm glad I've gotten to work with you. That being said, you do not need to continue doing this. It's dangerous and you don’t owe me or this city anything.”

“Are you going to keep doing this?”

“Yes.”

“Then so am I. I'm not abandoning you. We got thrown into this mess together, as far as I'm concerned you're stuck with me.”

Ladybug smiled, her eyes shining a little at his words, she cleared her throat and continued, “Ok, now that that’s been settled, then I suppose it's time to discuss where we go from here.”

Chat hummed in agreement.

Bolstered by his understanding, Ladybug continued, “We need to be more prepared. In a lot of ways. We need to train, get used to using our magic in combat situations. And we need a way to contact one another. And that’s just the start, we need to be prepared for things we don’t even know we need to be prepared for.”

Chat laid a hand on her arm, hoping to keep her from spiraling, “We’ll handle that when it comes to it. For now, let’s focus on what we can do right now. No sense worrying about it now.”

Ladybug nodded in agreement, “As far as combat goes, my mom taught me a little bit, and my school encouraged us to learn defensive spells when we were young, but that all has to do with self-defense. Half the time when we’re fighting akuma I'm acting on instinct, which doesn’t always turn out well.”

“Your instincts have served you well so far, don’t be too hard on yourself, even with training, your instincts will be the thing that keeps you alive.”

“Yeah, but I need more experience. That definitely won't hurt.”

Chat couldn’t help but agree, even with years of fencing under his belt, he had been almost killed in their last fight. “I have some combat training, but its fencing, so that doesn’t help you much."

“I suppose I’ll have to find something else to help me practice”, Ladybug sighed, “Maybe my familiar knows a spell of two that could help us. We can focus on getting a handle on our abilities until we figure something out.”

“Abilities?”

“Yeah, like enhanced agility and senses and stuff.”

Apparently Chat just looked even more confused so she continued, “You jumped that gap between the buildings like it was nothing. I can track things by smell and I can hear a man on the street below, six blocks away calling for a cab. That’s not normal.”

“Okay you may be right. I noticed you're way faster than any human I've seen. And now that you mention it I am noticing that I can see a lot better in the dark than I usually can. The hearing thing is new too.”

Ladybug chuckled, “Guess we need to learn a few things about ourselves. We can do that later. On to our next order of business: communication.”

“You want me to give you my phone number? I don’t usually give that out to just anyone, My Lady.”

His partner laughed, “No, you doof. Knowing your number is too close to knowing your identity.”

“Oh. Forgot we can't know that either.”

“Don’t worry. I have a work around. When your familiar helped you transform for the first time did they mention a physical tether or anything?”

Chat new exactly what she was talking about, “Yeah. he said that my ring would help be my physical tether to the transformation spell. It was a gift from him, it works pretty well since I'm always wearing it.”

Ladybug held out her hand, “May I see it? My tether is my earrings and I need both tethers to do the spell.”

Chat hesitated, “If I take it off I may turn back to myself.”

“Oh. I hadn’t thought of that.... Okay”, Ladybug said, leaving the ledge and moving farther onto the roof, she sat down cross-legged and gestured in front of her, “If you could sit mirroring me. I don’t need to see to perform the spell, so we can close our eyes just in case, okay?”

“Okay”, Chat said as he moved to sit across from her. Fingering his ring as he awaited her instructions.

“Alright, now close your eyes, take your ring off, then hold it in front of you.”

He did as she instructed. Sliding the ring off of his clawed gloves. 

The moment the ring was removed the sounds and sensations that surrounded him faded. He felt as if his entire being was balanced on a precipice. His form was being drawn over the edge, he knew that if he held on to his transformation he would be pulled into the beckoning oblivion, but he couldn’t bring himself to release it. The longer he held, the stronger the influence became, he was about allow himself to be pulled under when a hand gripped his. 

In an instant he remembered what was happening and released the transformation. Ladybug’s hands gripped both of his, his ring held between one pair of clasped hands, her earrings in the other.

Adrien could sense the magic beginning to swirl between him and his partner, the spell began to weave into their hands, imbuing the objects between them with magic.

He wasn’t sure how long it took, but as the spell reached its peak, Ladybug spoke.

_“animo commu anima”_

The incantation echoed through Adrien’s soul as the magic began to fade. The spell done.

“Okay. You can take your ring back now. Keep your eyes closed until we are both retransformed.”

Adrien took his ring back, calling up his transformation with little more than a thought, “I'm ready when you are”, he said, dutifully keeping his eyes closed.

“Yeah? Well it takes me a little longer to put my earrings back in, so give me a minute.”

Chat laughed as his partner finished putting her earrings back in. When she gave the okay he opened his eyes. Ladybug sat across from him, looking tired.

“So... anything else you want to do tonight?”

“Honestly, that spell took a lot out of me, imbuing magic into an item that’s already magical takes a lot of work, and I had to be extra careful not to mess up yours, since your magic is completely foreign to mine. I say we go home and sleep. But we still have things we need to work out. Can you meet here tomorrow night? Same time?”

“Yeah, I’ll be free then. Could we do it a little earlier though? I have school in the morning.”

“Yeah that’s probably a good idea, I don’t want to be too sleep deprived for school either. My parents go to bed early so I’ll be free any time after 9.”

“How about we meet here at 10.”

“Sounds good”, Ladybug said as she stood. Holding out a hand she pulled him to his feet as well.

“See you tomorrow.”

“Yeah, see ya.”

The two left in opposite directions.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Adrien popped through his window. A glance at his watch revealed that it was almost 2:30. Had he really been out that long?

They hadn’t talked for that long. Maybe 20 minutes at most. Had the spell really taken two hours to complete?

_No wonder Ladybug had been so tired,_ Adrien thought, _I can't even hold a spell for two minutes, much less two hours._

His nightly routine went by quickly. He had just finished filling Plagg in on what had happened and was examining the scar on his chest once again when something tickled in the back of his mind. His ring hummed with a low frequency.

_Testing. Testing. 123. Is this thing on?_

Confused, Adrien looked to his familiar. The words felt similar to how Plagg spoke to him. The cat offered no insight, he simply watched with interest.

_Chat? Can you hear me? Please respond if you can hear me. I feel like I'm getting through but I can't tell for sure._

Adrien took a moment to focus before trying to respond.

_Ladybug?_

The response was immediate,_ YES! YES! IT WORKED! _

Adrien winced a little, the words far more intense than he had expected.

_Yes, it worked, now please, use your inside voice._

_Oh. Sorry. Got a little excited, I didn't think that spell would actually work._

_Sounds like you have a lot of faith in yourself. What is this? How does it work?_

_Well, I don’t know the specifics, but it's a lot like a telepathic phone call. the receiver is your ring. You need to “pick up” to answer and you can hang up and ignore me if you need to._

_So, if I'm asleep, you won't be able to reach me?_

_Maybe? Look, it's better than nothing._

_It's fantastic, My Lady. You’ve really outdone yourself. _Adrien truly was amazed. _How did you come up with this?_

_Coming up with crazy ideas is easy, I had about 12 other ideas, this was just the only one my familiar said would have any chance of working. And even then, I'm not sure what the spell’s limits are, so try to only use this in emergencies._

_Hey. You called me._

_Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Shouldn’t you be in bed?_

_I am in bed, you're the one keeping me up._

_Well then, don’t let me keep you awake any longer. Good night, Chaton._

_Good night, My Lady._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always I love to hear from y'all! let me know if the conversations are difficult to understand or anything.
> 
> Im currently working on the next two. thanksgiving break has given me a lot of time to work (6 hour car rides are good for something) so im hoping to have the next chapter up sooner than usual.


	10. Lazy Sunday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey so I realize its been over a month since I updated... but I promise I haven't abandoned this work or anything. Finals kicked my ass so hard that I forgot my laptop charger in my dorm room, and since I live out of state, I haven't been able to use my computer since I've been home. 
> 
> so anyway, hope you all are having a good 2020.

Sunday morning came bright and early for Adrien. The sun streaked through the windows, casting the room in a warm glow. Plagg had already moved from his place on Adrien’s pillow to lounge in the sun. The cat perked up when Adrien stirred.

“What's the plan for today kid?” 

Adrien yawned, “Nothing work related. I'm planning on seeing if Nino is available today, it's been ages since we’ve hung out. The only thing I need to do is meet Ladybug again tonight.”

“No homework?”

“The only homework I need to be concerned about is the essay on Louis Pasteur for Ms. Mendeleiev’s class. It's not due until next week and it’s only 1000 words, I can knock that out in one night if I need to.”

“Well then, you better text Nino before it gets too late in the day. And don’t forget my cheese when you get breakfast.”

Adrien smiled, “Of course.”

Following Plagg’s orders, Adrien shot a text to Nino as he made his way to the kitchen. The staff had left a few biscuits in the breadbox, which Adrien grabbed without incident, making sure to find some kind of horrible smelling cheese for Plagg before slipping out of the kitchen and making his way to his room.

Entering his room, he tossed the cheese to where Plagg laid in the sun. Checking his phone revealed that Nino was more than happy to come over and hang out, provided he would be allowed onto the property.

Nino and his father had gotten in to a few “disagreements” over the years, so Adrien had found it best to keep the two separated as much as possible. 

After returning his plate to the kitchen, Adrien took a detour hoping to catch Natalie at her desk.

“Hey Natalie,” Adrien said, trying to make himself look as innocent as possible, “Since I have no plans today, would it be okay if Nino and Wayzz came over?”

Natalie looked over the top of her glasses at him, “Your father will be out for most of the day, and will be back by 8 this evening. I will have the kitchen staff cook up something appropriate for dinner at 5.”

Adrien had known Natalie long enough to know that this was her way of saying “yes”. He had also learned that it was best to keep things discreet when she let him disobey his father’s orders.

Giving Nino the go ahead, Adrien returned to his room and plopped down on the couch. Plagg, having finished his cheese, made his way over to the young mage and draped himself across the boy’s lap.

“Nino and Wayzz will be here soon.”

“Yep”, Adrien said.

“And once they get here, I’ll have to hide.”

“Correct.” Adrien knew where this was going.

“And I will be all alone. With no mage to keep company.”

“Right again.”

The cat dramatically turned onto his back and wailed, “Oh! Whatever will happen to me?! I shall waste away for lack of affection!”

Adrien reached down and began to scratch his familiar under the chin, “Jeez, you're always such a drama queen.”

Plagg purred loudly, “I'm a cat. Drama is in our nature.”

The two sat in companionable silence, lounging in the sun. Plagg purred loudly as Adrien continued to pet him.

All to soon the peace was interrupted by Adrien's phone ringing. It was Nino.

Plagg hopped off of Adrien's lap, “Guess that’s my cue to leave. I’ll be out wandering if you need me.”

“Try not to get into too much trouble.”

“Can't make any promises”, the cat said slyly as he made his way to the window, with was always left unlocked.

After making sure Plagg had made his exit, Adrien went downstairs to retrieve his friend.

“Dude!’’, Nino exclaimed as Adrien opened the door, “I can't believe you have the day off! What do you want to do? We can go to the movies, see if the girls are available, go to the arcade, maybe we can see if the rest of the boys are down to do something.”

Adrien rubbed the back of his neck and blushed, he hadn’t really had any plans, “Honestly, I was kinda just planning on hanging around here. I figured we could just maybe... chill?”

Nino stopped cold and looked his friend dead in the eyes, “Dude. I excel at “chill”. I am _always_ down to chill. _Especially _at your dope ass mansion.”

Adrien laughed, and led Nino to the kitchen, where they raided the pantry for any snacks they could find before disappearing into his room.

Wayzz made himself comfortable on the floor in the sun, in the same spot Plagg had occupied earlier. Adrien wondered briefly if the creature would be able to sense his familiar, though Wayzz had been over many times before and it had never been an issue.

Nino was already on the couch, booting up the gaming console. They started out playing whatever video games caught their eye, bouncing around until they settled on a racing game. 

“So... how was your day with Alya yesterday?”

Nino grinned, not taking his eye off the game, “If you're trying to distract me, it won't work.”

Adrien scoffed in mock offense, “I would never stoop to such lowly tactics. I'm genuinely interested in how my best friend and his girlfriend are doing. Besides, I don’t need to cheat, I could beat you in this game blindfolded.”

“Yeah, I know. Though to be fair, you’ve had a lot more practice than I have. To answer your question: Alya and I had a great time yesterday. I took her to a new café we had never tried before and then we walked the streets while holding hands, we ended the day at Andre’s Ice Cream.” Nino sighed, sounding a little lovestruck, “It was wonderful.”

Adrien smiled, he was glad his friend was so happy, but wasn’t going to pass up an opportunity to give Nino shit, “Aw, you sound so cute. Looks like somebody’s_ in Looooove!”_

Nino turned a shade of red that Adrien had never seen before.

“Oh shit”, the blonde said, pausing the game and turning to his friend, “You're actually in love. Have you told her?”

Nino didn't say anything, just turned a darker shade of red.

“_Dude!_ Why haven’t you told her!”

“I don’t know! I mean, we've been dating for over a year now. And I’ve been thinking it for the last few months or so. But every time I try to say it I clam up! I get scared and I back out.”

“What are you afraid of? You’ve been a couple for a while now. Even before you were officially dating you to were together, how would telling her you love her damage that?”

Nino took a deep breath and began his rant, “I don’t know, man. It’s like, even though we've been together for a while, I still feel like it’s a new relationship. I feel like it’s fragile, and I don’t want to do anything that could mess it up. I'm happy with where we are, and even though I already know so much about Alya, I keep learning about her, and the more I learn the more I realize that I'm the luckiest guy in the world. And she’s under a lot of stress right now with the Ladyblog, and I don’t want to put anything else on her plate right now. Y’know?”

Adrien nodded, “That makes sense, I'm sure the time to tell her will come eventually, it’s probably best not to stress about it. How is the blog thing going anyway?”

“It’s going well. It’s really opening some doors for her and it gives her some experience with what she wants to do after college. She’s really proud of it. And I’m really proud of her, it’s just...”

“Just what?”

“I wish she wouldn’t put herself at risk.” Nino said, deflating a little, “There have only been three akuma incidents so far, an she’s been awfully close to the action for two of them. The pigeon one wasn’t awful, I was with her, and Ladybug kept us from getting attacked by the birds...”

Nino trailed off a bit in memory, shaking his head he continued, “But she was really close to the action with the Mime. And people got hurt with that one, an officer died, and Alya got that on film. I love the fact that she is so committed to her goals and so persistent in achieving them, but sometimes she can be a bit impulsive, and Trixx doesn’t do much to dissuade her recklessness, if anything she encourages her. Usually Wayzz and I can talk her out of doing something too stupid, but if we aren’t there then I’m worried she’s going to get hurt.” Nino’s voice got quiet as he said that last part.

“Have you tried talking to her about it?”

“Yeah, I've mentioned it a few times, but she just waves it off, saying that caution doesn’t make the news and that I worry too much.”

“Maybe if Marinette and I say something then she might take it to heart a little more?”

Nino grinned, “I’d appreciate that, but I'm sure you'll both get a similar response.”

“I’ll mention it to Marinette, I'm sure she’s just as worried about it as you are.”

“Thanks, dude.”

“Any time, man.” Adrien said, unpausing the game, “Now let’s see if you can beat me now that you have the power of _looove _on your side.”

Nino scrambled for his controller, “Oh, fuck you.”

Adrien laughed, he was glad to have Nino in his life, and from now on, he’d make sure to keep an eye out for Alya as Chat Noir.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The two played and talked until one of the weekend cooks brought dinner into the room on a small wheeled cart.

The food was good, as usual, though Nino bemoaned the lack of anything unhealthy. Wayzz had been particularly pleased with the selection of raw vegetables that the cooks had provided. 

After eating, they played for a while longer, before Adrien realized that his father was scheduled to arrive in little over an hour. Not wanting to take any chances with his best friend getting caught, he escorted Nino out of the mansion, promising to see him tomorrow at school.

Gabriel arrived with little fanfare slightly earlier than projected, but Nino was safely off the estate by that point. No words were spoken between father and son as they passed each other in the entryway. 

Plagg had returned to his favorite lounging place by the time Adrien had returned to his room.

“How do you know when it’s safe to come back? Do you just sulk around outside?”

Plagg gazed at him haughtily, “I am a dignified and mystical creature, I don’t sulk. And it wouldn’t be very mystical of me to tell you all of my secrets.”

“I thought Fae couldn’t lie.”

“We can't, but we can refuse to answer a question, or we can word our answers in deceiving ways.”

“Isn’t that kinda the same as lying?”

“Not by Fae standards. We can't lie, but the rules never said anything about dishonesty.”

“Huh”, Adrien paused for a moment, thinking, “I guess I'd just never thought of it like that.”

“Most suckers don’t. That’s how the Fae were able to cause such a ruckus back in the good old days.”

“Back in the day?”

“There was time, many centuries ago, when the barrier between the worlds was thinner, little more than a veil really. Fae were able to traverse the planes without much effort, and the more ambitious of us made a name for themselves.”

“Like who?”

“Most of the old stories, lots of old mythologies incorporate the fae. Everything from dragons to mermaids really.”

“Well I knew all that, but did you know any of Fae that really made a name for themselves?”

“Oh, all sorts”, Plagg seemed to relish the memories as he spoke, “I was personal friends with the dragon that is now on the Welsh Flag, though it’s not an accurate depiction by any means. I also knew the Beast of Gévaudan, the Cath Palug, and the Dahu. Those are the most interesting ones.”

“You knew the Beast of Gévaudan? And you're just now mentioning it?”

Plagg shrugged, “You never asked.”

“Okay, well now I'm asking, I still have a while before I need to meet Ladybug. Tell me everything.”

And so, Adrien’s familiar began to regale the stories he’s accrued over the centuries. Most of them sounded like utter nonsense to Adrien, but he enjoyed it when Plagg was like this, it was rare for the cat to be so forthcoming with information.

Adrien’s phone buzzed.

“Ah, time for you to put on your catsuit.”

Adrien rolled his eyes, “First my classmates, now you. It’s all your fault anyway! Why did I have to be cat themed?”

Plagg hummed noncommittally, “Since I had a hand in weaving the spell, my physical form probably influenced the final product.”

“Well then can't I just do the spell again without you.”

Plagg laughed, “Look, kid. Your magic is strong, there's no denying that, but you’ve got nothing in terms of control. Maybe your girlfriend could do it, but the chances of you doing that spell on your own is almost zero at this point.”

Adrien deflated a little, “So I'm stuck in a catsuit for the foreseeable future.”

Plagg cackled, “You bet your ass you are!”

Adrien was about to retort when his ring began to hum. A voice echoed quietly in his head.

_Are we still on for tonight?_

Adrien sent a thought back in reply. _Yes, I'm headed out now. See you soon._

Calling on his transformation, he vaulted out the window, heading towards their meeting spot. It only took him a few minutes to arrive, but Ladybug had beat him there, she stood on the ledge, twirling her yo-yo with a practiced hand.

She didn't start when Chat landed behind her.

She didn't turn around as she spoke, “So, I was talking to my familiar, and we both agreed that the best course of action is to test our physical limits first. So I figured we’d just jump right in.”

Chat nodded, “Good a plan as any.”

“Glad you agree.”

Before Ladybug had even finished her sentence, she had whirled around and flung her yo-yo towards his face. Chat dodged, the weapon brushed along the edge of his hood. Whipping out his staff he moved to block before she could strike again. The clash of their weapons echoed above the city.

Ladybug grinned dangerously, “Let’s see who goes down first.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Adrien groaned as he walked into the school that Monday. He and Ladybug had stayed up far too late last night, neither one of them wanting to be the one that threw in the towel.

They had both learned a lot about their new abilities. By the end of the night Ladybug could practically track him on scent alone, and he could hear her heartbeat from across the rooftops. Their game of hide-and-seek had been a short one.

Adrien was sure he would be covered in bruises this morning if it weren’t for Ladybug’s quick healing spell she had cast at the end of their training. They'd both taken quite a beating, Ladybug had a distinct advantage when fighting while moving, her yo-yo gave her range and accuracy that Chat couldn’t match with his staff. The tables turned when the fighting got up close and personal, Chat had a distinct advantage with both his claws and staff, he was well equipped for getting in close.

Adrien was still contemplating the late-night training session when Nino plopped into the seat next to him. Wayzz settling under their desk, as usual.

“Mondays never get any easier, do they?”

Adrien smiled, “Good morning to you, too.”

Nino groaned, “I get it dude, you're a morning person. Now stop being so chipper. No need to rub it in.”

Adrien didn't feel very “chipper” but still seemed better adjusted to the early hour than his friend.

The two lapsed into silence until Alya walked in, setting a cup of coffee in front of her near comatose boyfriend.

“Good morning boys. Is Mylene here today?”

Adrien was the only one awake enough to answer, “No, I haven’t seen her. Why?”

“Oh, I was just wondering if she’d be here after the events of Friday.”

It took Adrien a moment to connect the dots, “Oh because of the—”

He was cut off by Mylene entering the room, she seemed more subdued than usual, but still managed to smile in greeting.

“Well, I guess that answers that question”, Alya said quietly.

Right behind Mylene came Ms. Bustier.

“Alright class, settle down and get ready for class to begin, the bell is about to ri—”

She was cut off by Marinette, who stumbled into the room. 

And fell flat on her face.

The girl was on her feet before anyone could react. 

The bell rang.

“Not late!” the young witch proudly proclaimed, Tikki still hovering above her head.

“That’s very good Marinette, now take your seat so we can begin.”

Marinette, face still flushed from her sprint to the classroom, made her way up to sit next to Alya.

“Before we begin I have an announcement—oh! Perfect timing Principal Damocles”, she said as their principal entered the room, a young girl in tow.

“Class, I'd like to introduce you to your newest classmate. Say hello to Lila Rossi.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> to the person that asked many months ago if Lila would be added, this chapter is my answer.
> 
> as always I love hearing from y'all, literally any type of comment brightens my day. 
> 
> as far developing a schedule.... i'll try my best to update once a week or so, but one of my coworkers got fired without replacement, so my workload is going to be shit so ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


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